Iceland's relationship with Norway c. 870-c. 1100: memory, history and identity 9789004336513, 9789004335622, 9004336516, 9004335625

Table of contents :
Iceland’s Relationship with Norway c.870–c.1100: Memory, History and Identity......Page 3
Copyright......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
Note on Spelling and Other Conventions......Page 7
Acknowledgements......Page 8
List of Abbreviations......Page 10
Introduction......Page 11
Historical Introduction......Page 19
Traditional Perspectives: National Historiography......Page 25
New Perspectives: Memory......Page 32
The Memory of the Past as Cultural Capital......Page 47
Memory Specialists and Memorability......Page 49
The Sources......Page 57
Historical Writing in Iceland and Norway......Page 59
The Icelandic National Histories......Page 61
The Sagas......Page 65
The Norwegian National Histories......Page 68
Conclusion......Page 71
2 The Historical Mythology of Iceland......Page 73
The landnám According to Íslendingabók......Page 77
The landnám According to the landnámabækur......Page 87
The landnám According to the Norwegian National Histories......Page 97
Historia Norwegie......Page 99
Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium......Page 100
Ingólfr......Page 102
Haraldr hárfagri......Page 111
Conclusion......Page 121
3 The Legal Mythology of Iceland......Page 123
Íslendingabók and Early Icelandic law......Page 131
The Adoption of a Series of Oral Laws from Norway......Page 133
The Acceptance of Christianity......Page 152
Conclusion......Page 161
4 The Ólafslög......Page 165
Early Norwegian Interest in Iceland......Page 168
The Background and Dating of the Treaty......Page 170
The Negotiation and Ratification of the Treaty......Page 173
The Preservation of the Treaty......Page 175
Contemporary References to the Treaty......Page 180
The Right of the Norwegian King to Self-Summon Cases......Page 189
The Rights of Norwegians in Iceland to Enjoy the Same Laws and Rights as Men of That Country......Page 192
Um rétt Íslendinga i Nóregi......Page 193
The Legal Status of Icelanders in Norway......Page 194
Icelandic Obligations......Page 196
Norwegian Perceptions of the Icelanders......Page 199
A Revised Interpretation......Page 201
Military Shelter......Page 202
Economic Shelter......Page 207
Conclusion......Page 211
Issues of Identity......Page 214
Geographical Origin......Page 221
Function......Page 223
Types of Norwegian......Page 224
Acceptance into Icelandic Society......Page 230
Icelanders in Norway......Page 232
Icelanders and the Norwegian King in Morkinskinna......Page 240
The King of Iceland......Page 246
Conclusion......Page 249
Conclusion......Page 254
Bibliography......Page 267
Index......Page 302

Citation preview

Iceland’s Relationship with Norway c.870–c.1100

The Northern World North Europe and the Baltic c. 400–1700 ad. Peoples, Economies and Cultures

Editors Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (Oslo) Ingvild Øye (Bergen) Piotr Gorecki (University of California at Riverside) Steve Murdoch (St. Andrews) Cordelia Heß (Gothenburg) Anne Pedersen (National Museum of Denmark)

VOLUME 81

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/nw

Iceland’s Relationship with Norway c.870–c.1100 Memory, History and Identity By

Ann-Marie Long

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Nordmennene lander på Island år 872 by Oscar A. Wergeland. 1877. Nasjonalmuseet for kunst, arkitektur og design/The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (NG.M.04428). Photograph by Jacques Lathion. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Long, Ann-Marie, author. Title: Iceland’s relationship with Norway, c. 870-c. 1100 : memory, history and identity / by Ann-Marie Long. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2017. | Series: The northern world : North Europe and the Baltic c. 400-1700 AD : peoples, economies and cultures, ISSN 1569-1462 ; volume 81 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017009828 (print) | LCCN 2017011383 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004336513 (E-book) | ISBN 9789004335622 (hardback : acid-free paper) Subjects: LCSH: Iceland--Relations--Norway. | Norway--Relations--Iceland. | Iceland--History--To 1262--Historiography. | Memory--Social aspects--Iceland--History--To 1500. | Collective memory--Iceland--History--To 1500. | Group identity--Iceland--History--To 1500. | Nationalism--Iceland--History--To 1500. | Icelandic literature--History and criticism. | Mythology--Social aspects--Iceland--History--To 1500. Classification: LCC DL352 (ebook) | LCC DL352 .L66 2017 (print) | DDC 949.12/01--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017009828

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1569-1462 isbn 978-90-04-33562-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-33651-3 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Note on Spelling and Other Conventions vii Acknowledgements viii List of Abbreviations x Introduction 1 1 Perspectives Old and New 9 Historical Introduction 9 Traditional Perspectives: National Historiography 15 New Perspectives: Memory 22 Alternative Perspectives 37 The Memory of the Past as Cultural Capital 37 Memory Specialists and Memorability 39 The Sources 47 Historical Writing in Iceland and Norway 49 The Icelandic National Histories 51 The Sagas 55 The Norwegian National Histories 58 Conclusion 61 2 The Historical Mythology of Iceland 63 The landnám According to Íslendingabók 67 The landnám According to the landnámabækur 77 The landnám According to the Norwegian National Histories 87 Historia Norwegie 89 Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium 90 Settlement Myths 92 Ingólfr 92 Haraldr hárfagri 101 Conclusion 111 3 The Legal Mythology of Iceland 113 Íslendingabók and Early Icelandic law 121 The Adoption of a Series of Oral Laws from Norway 123 The Acceptance of Christianity 142 Conclusion 151

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Contents

4 The Ólafslög 155 Early Norwegian Interest in Iceland 158 The Background and Dating of the Treaty 160 The Negotiation and Ratification of the Treaty 163 The Preservation of the Treaty 165 Contemporary References to the Treaty 170 Frá rétt Nóregs konungs á Íslandi 179 The Right of the Norwegian King to Self-Summon Cases 179 The Rights of Norwegians in Iceland to Enjoy the Same Laws and Rights as Men of That Country 182 Rights of Inheritance 183 Um rétt Íslendinga i Nóregi 183 The Legal Status of Icelanders in Norway 184 Access to Resources and Inheritance Rights 186 Icelandic Obligations 186 Norwegian Perceptions of the Icelanders 189 A Revised Interpretation 191 Military Shelter 192 Economic Shelter 197 Conclusion 201 5 Icelanders and Norwegians 204 Issues of Identity 204 Norwegians in Iceland 211 Geographical Origin 211 Function 213 Types of Norwegian 214 Acceptance into Icelandic Society 220 Icelanders in Norway 222 Icelanders and the Norwegian King in Morkinskinna 230 The King of Iceland 236 Conclusion 239 Conclusion 244 Bibliography 257 Index 292

Note on Spelling and Other Conventions Medieval Icelandic personal names are rendered in standardized Old Icelandic; nicknames are uncapitalized and unitalicized. Quotations are given as they appear in the specified editions of texts used in this book, which has led to some spelling discrepancies. Material from the sagas is cited according to the relevant Íslenzk fornrit volume number and page number. Unless stated otherwise, all citations of Landámabók throughout this study refer to the standard modern edition of Sturlubók in the Íslenzk fornrit series. All references are given to this text in íf I with the relevant page number. In those instances where the Hauksbók version is being discussed, citations to this text, which is also contained in íf I, include the chapter number for clarity. References to material from the law-codes are cited according to the edition used and the relevant page number, with the code name, chaper and section included where possible in square brackets. In accordance with convention, the names of Icelandic authors are given in full in each footnote and are cited alphabetically according to first name and then patronym in the bibliography. All translations are my own, except where stated otherwise. I have consulted and made use of English translations. Changes which I have made to these translations are intended to provide a more literal or direct translation of the original text.

Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the support and funding I received from a number of institutions. My doctoral studies at University College Dublin were funded by the award of an Ad Astra Scholarship. This facilitated researching the PhD dissertation that formed the basis of this book. I was also the recipient of a scholarship from the Icelandic Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, which enabled me to study the Icelandic language at the Háskóli Íslands in Reykjavík. The Humanities Institute of Ireland very generously provided me with a collegiate environment, and I am particularly grateful to Marc Caball and Valerie Norton for their support. The University of Notre Dame has been a generous benefactor, and particular thanks goes to the Medieval Institute, who welcomed me as a research visitor for several months when I was working on my dissertation. I would like to express my gratitude to the late Olivia Remie Constable for facilitating that visit, and Marina Smyth for showing me the Institute’s collections. More recently, a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame has provided me with the necessary funding and a supportive academic community in which to prepare my manuscript for publication. I would like to thank Patrick Griffin, Chair of the History Department at Notre Dame, and Margaret Meserve, Associate Dean for the Humanities and Faculty Affairs, for their support and guidance. I am especially grateful to the staff of the Hesburgh Library, who have tirelessly processed my requests for obscure journal articles in a variety of languages with remarkable tolerance. There are several individuals, both colleagues and friends, whose counsel throughout this process has proved inestimable. I had the good fortune to have two supervisors to lean on for assistance and guidance at various times when working on my dissertation. I was initially supervised by Edward James until his retirement and then, in the final stages, by Elva Johnston. I believe each of them has brought their respective and complementary strengths to bear on my research, then and now. A special debt of gratitude goes to both for their advice, good-humour, friendship and patience. Their continued interest in my professional development and in this particular project is much appreciated. I am immensely grateful to Edward for his meticulous reading and advice on style and technicalities while this manuscript was in preparation. I would also like to thank my examiners, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Michael Staunton, for their encouragement and academic counsel. Ted Andersson read an earlier draft of this manuscript and I am deeply appreciative of his recommendations and suggestions, as well as his interest and enthusiasm. I also owe a debt to Howard Clarke and Charles Doherty who prompted my curiosity about the

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settlement of Iceland. I am especially grateful for John Morrill’s sage counsel at a pivotal moment. I also wish to thank the anonymous reader for offering such fruitful criticism of my original manuscript and Marcella Mulder for expertly guiding me through the editing process. Finally, this study would not have been possible were it not for the support of friends and family. I particularly want to thank Mark Empey, Gillian Finan, Emma Lyons, Shane McCorristine, Helga Birgisdóttir, Tessa Molloy and Yasmin Velloza. My parents, Gerard and Ursula, have been unerring in their support and encouragement of all my endeavours. Particular thanks go to Joseph Long, who very graciously acted as a reader. Finally, I want to thank my husband, Rory, whose kindness, patience, love and understanding throughout this process have been boundless. He believed in me when I did not believe in myself.

List of Abbreviations Full bibliographical references to the works mentioned in the list below are given in the bibliography at the end of this book. Ágrip  Ágrip af Nóregskonungasǫgum: A Twelfth-Century Synoptic History of the Kings of Norway Ailnoth  Ailnoth, Gesta Swenomagni regis et filiorum eius et passio gloriosissimi Canuti regis et martyris Cleasby-Vigfússon  Richard Cleasby and Guðbrandur Vigfússon, An Icelandic-English Dictionary cpb Corpus Poeticum Boreale csi The Complete Sagas of Icelanders including 49 tales di Diplomatarium Islandicum fgt First Grammatical Treatise Flb Flateyjarbók: en samling af norske konge-sagaer gh  Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum Grágás 1a-Ib Grágás: Islændernes lovbog i fristatens tid, udgivet efter det kongelige bibliotheks haandskrift Grágás II  Grágás efter det Arnamagnæankse haandskrift nr. 334 fol., Staðarhólsbók ha Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium: An Account of the Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings Hauksbók Hauksbók: udgiven efter de Arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 4°, samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter hn Historia Norwegie ia Islandske Annaler indtil 1578 íf Íslenzk fornrit Íslendingabók Íslendingabók, in Íslendingabók-Kristni Saga: The Book of the Icelanders-The Story of the Conversion Konungs skuggsjá Speculum Regale. Konungs-skuggsjá. Konge-Speilet Landnámabók The Book of Settlements: Landnámabók Laws Laws of Early Iceland: Grágás Morkinskinna Morkinskinna: The Earliest Icelandic Chronicle of the Norwegian Kings (1030–1157) NgL Norges gamle Love indtil 1387 Ohthere Ohthere’s Voyages Sturlunga Saga Sturlunga saga Including The Islendinga Saga of Lawman Sturla Thordsson and Other Works

Introduction Historians of medieval Iceland have generally followed one of two paths. They have either charted the course of the island’s political evolution from the initial settlement up to 1262/64, when Iceland submitted to Norway and the Commonwealth era (þjóðveldisöld) ended, or else they have written constitutional and legal history examined from the ‘timeless’ vantage point of the sagas and law-codes. Studies of events that took place prior to 1264 – events that are difficult to document because of a lack of available sources – have become unfashionable; accordingly, most recent works have tended to focus on later periods for which more sources are available. This book, by contrast, examines an aspect of an earlier period, specifically the memory of the relationship between Iceland and Norway from c.870 to c.1100. It investigates how that relationship was perceived by the Icelanders and memorialized in sources primarily written in Iceland. The focus of this book is not on the actuality of that relationship: it examines how one aspect of the past was made meaningful and relevant to Icelanders living in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the period in which the surviving sources were composed. In this respect, “probability is a more pivotal and interesting concept than truth.”1 The descriptions of events and encounters involving interaction between Icelanders, Norwegians and the Norwegian king are not static but shift over time. The continued inclusion of events temporally located in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries but described in sources from the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can shed light on how the island’s memory of its early relationship with Norway was perceived and changed over time. The dual processes of migration and settlement marked a rupture with Norway. This physical break and dislocation from the centre prompted the need for self-definition in the periphery which, in turn, required an interpretation of the past that allowed the migrants to find, express and establish their identity in a new environment. The historical background and context for this relationship is provided by the westward overseas migration that took place from Norway to the North Atlantic island outpost in the late ninth century. The medieval accounts proclaim that Iceland, which had remained uninhabited save for the presence of a few transient Irish anchorites, was colonized in the late ninth century by high-born Norwegians who, rather than accept the authority of the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri, instead opted to leave their ­ancestral 1 Hans Jacob Orning, Unpredictability and Presence: Norwegian Kingship in the High Middle Ages, trans. Alan Crozier (Leiden, 2008), p. 37.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004336513_002

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Introduction

homeland and settle in terra nova. The news of available land beyond the reach of the Norwegian monarch was sufficient in itself to ensure that within sixty years the island was declared fully settled. Although the island retained strong cultural and historical ties with Norway, Iceland remained outside the official domain of the Norwegian king until the late thirteenth century when the islanders accepted Hákon Hákonarson as their sovereign and the island was incorporated into the Norwegian kingdom proper, bringing to an end the Commonwealth or Free State period. None of the preserved Icelandic accounts documenting the island’s settlement, the foundation of its society, its early political development and consolidation, the conversion to Christianity and other eleventh-century events may be regarded as contemporary testimonies. These sources, with some exceptions, were primarily composed during the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Their interpretations of the foundation and subsequent development of Icelandic society were long believed by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholars to reflect the sentiments of their composers: men who had no loyalty or affection for the Norwegian king. The use of the loaded term ‘Commonwealth’ as a scholarly attribution presupposed an anti-­ monarchical – and, by default, anti-Norwegian – bias or stance on the part of those medieval Icelandic authors documenting their history, especially when they dealt with aspects of their shared history; simultaneously the term threw up a series of a priori oppositions between independence and submission, Iceland and Norway. A closer reading of the sources, however, reveals more complex memories of the early relationship between Iceland and Norway. The composers of these texts sought to establish honourable origins for the islanders and to legitimate their society; they also sought to construct an Icelandic self-image. Central to the creation of this self-image was their own understanding and perception of the role played by Norway in the island’s settlement and early institutional development. Their constructions of the past were not built on a series of pejorative contrasts: they were much more nuanced and discriminating. Collectively these texts reveal that the relationship between Iceland and Norway was negotiated and renegotiated throughout the lifespan of the Commonwealth, with the period from the early twelfth century onwards characterized by extensive negotiations in this sphere. This book argues that the memorialization of this relationship was central to the political strategies pursued by medieval Icelandic authors, presenting it as a visible part of Icelandic history. It contends that, through a series of complex constructions of the past based on the interplay between history, memory and myth, medieval Icelandic authors sought ­retrospectively to define the role played by Norway in the island’s past and in the development of its society.

Introduction

3

Far from being the stable, static society described in the sagas, the island’s history – and particularly its relationship with Norway – was characterized by unease and turmoil. Peter Foote wrote that the first settlers considered themselves freed from the fetters they felt restricted them in Norway: “They had no heavy burden to bear of ancestral custom and local tabu and no immemorial theophanic landscape to move in.”2 This statement might suggest that the first colonists had the opportunity to create something entirely new in terra nova. In truth, the settlement process was a painstaking one, precisely because it involved an interaction between the legacy of the country they had left behind them and their experience in this new land. That interaction was not confined to the past; it also involved varying levels of negotiation and renegotiation when it came to their contemporary relationship with Norway. It is worth emphasizing from the outset that each individual who travelled to Norway, or came into contact with Norwegians (whether in Norway or in Iceland) or met the Norwegian king, had a different experience. Not all of those experiences were recorded. We simply do not have a comprehensive record of encounters between people from Iceland and Norway in the period under study. There must have been many individuals who travelled between both lands for a variety of reasons yet their observations were either not recorded or have simply not survived. Of those who did record such encounters, some may have done little more than disseminate what was essentially “received opinion,”3 an opinion possibly mediated by multiple individuals and passed through multiple filters prior to being documented. The task of documenting the past in medieval Iceland fell to the educated, well-connected few and the sources used in this study are the products of a small stratum within medieval Icelandic society.4 In the context of this book ‘Icelanders’ is shorthand for the members of the Icelandic literary elite, those very individuals who furnish us, inescapably, with almost all our ideas about Icelandic opinions during the period under study.5 They were members of the very class that had at once the most important and the most t­urbulent ­relationship with the Norwegian king and their histories reflect their own socio-­political position within Icelandic society. It is impossible to know with certainty the authors of many of the sources used in this study. Only a 2 Peter Foote, preface to The Saints in Iceland: Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400 by Margaret Cormack (Brussels, 1994), p. ix. 3 Edward James, Europe’s Barbarians, ad 200–600 (Harlow, 2009), p. 15. 4 This statement is also applicable to the Norwegian sources I use although it must be noted they tend to have a more ecclesiastical provenance. 5 See James, Europe’s Barbarians, pp. 11–12, where he uses ‘the Romans’ to much the same effect.

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Introduction

few named individuals involved in this historiographical endeavour can be ­identified with specific works, but all of these men, as we shall see, were as significant for their political activities as their literary ones. What we can say, however, is that whether known or unknown, all of these individuals brought their own historical contexts and, by extension, personal biases to their works. Those works, furthermore, are the product of their own particular time and environment. Any attempt to gain an impression of Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian king as viewed through the often hostile lens of the Icelanders is not a straightforward task. How far can we trust sources written by individuals or sponsored by a class of individuals who may have had a deep-seated and persistent resentment towards their ancestral homeland and its monarch? Can we ever be certain what these individuals actually thought about Norway or the Norwegian king from a reading of their works alone? How have their personal motivations shaped their texts “in ways that are (to us) misleading and deceptive?”6 How consciously did our authors and compilers interact with their material? How much were their works affected by the expectations of the audience for whom they were writing? How was the intended audience(s) to receive the information in these works – were they to be read privately or read aloud in large communal settings? If the latter, were the values and opinions espoused by the text embraced by all? Although not representative of Icelandic society in the broadest sense, medieval Icelandic authors could, through the dissemination of their works, standardize existing beliefs and opinions. Within this context writing about the island’s early relationship with Norway may have stimulated a more uniform understanding of that relationship. There exists within the textual output of this literary elite, however, a diversity of opinion on Norway and the place of Norway in the Icelandic past. Neither the terse national history of Ari Þorgilsson, nor the more expansive accounts of the island’s colonization preserved in the landnámabækur (Books of Settlement), nor even the sweeping narratives of the Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders) and konungasögur (kings’ sagas) speak with consistency or transparency about this relationship. To be both meaningful and relevant, the past had to be constructed in a specific way. Through the interrelated and sequential processes of selecting, interpreting and assigning meaning, medieval Icelandic authors made the past and memories of that past relevant and meaningful to a contemporary audience. Their constructions of the past were held in tension between the actuality of the past itself – a past irretrievable in its full details – and the interests, agendas and motivations underpinning those constructions. To these we might also 6 James, Europe’s Barbarians, p. 19.

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add the expectations of the recipient or audience. These compositions, which constitute the corporate memory of the Icelanders, offered the opportunity to capture an interpretation of their past for themselves (Icelanders) and others (Norwegians, Scandinavians), across time (distant ancestors, their contemporary descendants and future generations) and space. The period under examination, c.870 to c.1100, is included within the welldefined Viking Age and the lifespan of the Icelandic Commonwealth. It is a time filled with pivotal events: in the course of these two hundred years the ­island was settled, adopted a uniform code of law, established a National Assembly (c.930), converted to Christianity (c. 999–1000) and negotiated the only foreign treaty of the Commonwealth period with the Norwegian monarch, King Óláfr Haraldsson (1015–1028). By taking the island’s permanent inhabitation as its starting point, this book evaluates the accounts of the island’s colonization and early socio-political development within the context of the early relationship between Iceland and Norway. The decision to end this study at c.1100 might appear unconventional but it coincides with the memory of a specific historical moment in the Iceland–Norway relationship: the possible preservation in writing of an eleventh-century treaty between the two countries. Our knowledge of pre-twelfth century Icelandic society is limited by the simple fact that information about the past in early Iceland was transmitted orally. This restricts what we can confidently suggest about the first generations of Iceland’s human history. Not only are the surviving written sources relatively few in number, but most are from a period significantly later than the events they describe. With the notable exception of Íslendingabók (Book of the Icelanders), composed sometime between 1122 and 1133, the available sources are largely in the form of narratives from the thirteenth century and later, anonymous documents beset with problems pertaining to their origins, authorship, time of composition and manuscript tradition, that require a great deal of work to establish their veracity. Our understanding of early Icelandic society is therefore conditioned by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century views of the past. These views must also have been profoundly influenced by the wideranging socio-political changes Icelandic society underwent in the course of the thirteenth century. Descriptions of the past were the cultural products of the present, which reveal the accretion of an historical tradition that must be accounted for. This tradition concerns the memory and place of Norway and her kings in early Icelandic history. While the capacity to discover how things really were is limited, the literary representations of early Icelandic society that have survived memorialize the past. These narratives preserve a memory, or the memory of a memory, of an earlier time. It is only by using these texts and the memories enshrined in them

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Introduction

that we can come close to something approximating the historical reality of Iceland between the ninth and twelfth centuries.7 These retrospective narratives comprise a repertoire of obligatory cultural memories, which generates identity and “embeds the past in the present.”8 The construction, function and operation of memory in the sources used in the present investigation are key to unpicking the early relationship between Iceland and Norway. Although the Icelanders were keenly aware of the cultural, linguistic and other areas of similarity that existed between themselves and Norway, they also recognized that they were not the same as their Norwegian cousins across the sea. The contrast between ‘Icelander’ and ‘Norwegian’ was an important one, even if the meanings attached to each were subject to redefinition and reinterpretation. They reveal contested memories of the early Iceland–Norway relationship, suggesting a dichotomy between the desire to identify with an ancestral homeland, on the one hand, and an attempt to construct a separate identity, on the other.9 An important contention of this book is that it is possible to see beyond the traditional interpretation of medieval Icelandic history as that of an autonomous, sovereign people in the mid-Atlantic establishing their own society and the laws governing that society without any external influence or input. A close reading of the narrative sources used in this study detects ‘counter-voices’ to this popular tradition. While Iceland remained outside of the Norwegian king’s official sphere of influence until the late thirteenth century, it is apparent that before submission other ways of exerting political influence and dominance were pursued. In part, some of this was due to cultural chauvinism. This is perhaps seen most clearly in the conversion of the Icelanders, allegedly at the behest of Óláfr Tryggvason in c.999/1000. Other aspects of Icelandic tradition were repressed by the Norwegian king – again, this can be seen clearly in the subsequent suppression of traditional customs, such as infanticide and the consumption of horse meat, changes which Óláfr Haraldsson insisted be incorporated into Icelandic law. This royal insistence on bringing the laws of a country he did not rule into line with Christian norms suggests the king did indeed have some influence over their content. One might wonder why the Icelanders apparently did not object to this interference by a non-native, distant power in their domestic affairs. The relationship between Iceland and Norway was the most significant geo-political relationship in early Icelandic history, yet the topic has remained 7 Orning, Unpredictability, p. 313. 8 Kirsten Hastrup, ‘Presenting the Past: Reflections on Myth and History,’ Folk, 29 (1987), p. 266. 9 Shami Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas and Norwegian History: Problems and Perspectives (Leiden, 2011), p. 179.

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­under-investigated. Modern scholars, still labouring under the burden of various nationalist agendas, were more concerned with establishing the historical legitimacy of the medieval nation-state. While a number of recent publications point to an enhanced understanding of the Norse realm, its interrelatedness, internal relationships and political union, they have fought shy of attempting to evaluate the relationship that existed between Iceland and Norway in the period c.870–c.1100. The lack of attention given thus far to the pre-twelfth century relationship between Iceland and Norway runs the risk of neglecting a key component of early Icelandic writing: the manner in which Norway was used as a device by medieval Icelandic authors to serve their own interests. These texts, whether in the form of historical narratives or sagas, are artefacts of Icelandic historical memory. Traces of the island’s earlier relationship with Norway can be discerned by reading these sources closely. In some instances, these traces may not be explicitly recorded, but they demonstrate that certain aspects of the past could not be silenced or elided by reconstructing that past. They also indicate that the place of Norway in this past continued to be perceived as important at the time of composition and later transmission of these narratives. An examination of Iceland’s memory of her relationship with Norway affords us the opportunity to reconsider early Icelandic autonomy and the nature of that autonomy; we can also appreciate the events leading to submission in a different way. By comparing the articulation of a Norwegian presence across a range of sources composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, it is possible to examine how Norway functioned as an actor within accounts of the early Icelandic past. We can map how these functions changed over time and how those transformations relate to contemporary Icelandic concerns. The sources present Norway as an active agent and not as a passive or supporting character. References to Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian kings are never neutral or irrelevant inclusions. Indeed, in many circumstances, there is every reason to believe that the role or contribution of Norway is highlighted as opposed to being downplayed. The preservation of sources that contain a considerable Norwegian element cannot be simply attributed to chance. Clearly Norway had to have some presence in the Icelandic historical record: the recipients and audiences of these narratives would likely have objected if their illustrious Norwegian ancestry had been denied them. Equally, however, they would have taken exception to a presentation of the past that differed radically from what they themselves had experienced or been told about. Following a consideration of the place of the Iceland–Norway relationship in national historiography, the methodological framework and alternative

8

Introduction

­ erspectives of the present book are outlined in Chapter 1, which concludes p with a brief introduction to the main sources. Chapters 2 and 3 pay particular attention to Norwegian input at the inception of island society in the Age of Settlement, and how Norwegian norms and kings were used to underpin early Icelandic and political history. The discussion of the settlement in Chapter 2, which focuses on the accounts of this event in the extant landnámabækur and Norwegian national histories, establishes the context for the historical relationship between the two countries. Divergent Icelandic and Norwegian memories of this event, together with the construction of memories around paradigms of exemplarity, are also considered. Chapter 3 considers the memory of how the island’s first law-code was brought to the island in the early tenth century and the individuals remembered as being involved in this endeavour and the conversion. It also introduces the extent of the influence Norway wielded over Icelandic history, implicitly and explicitly. Here the focus is on how Norway was used as a tool to explain certain processes and actions and how the Norwegian king was used to validate Icelandic autonomy. Chapter 4 examines the memory of a more structured political relationship between the Icelanders and the Norwegian king. From the time of the island’s settlement until the terminus of this study, Iceland is remembered as having attracted the interest of a number of Norwegian kings. While her geographical status provided for a “permanently defined local environment,”10 that environment was also one over which the Norwegian king and his subjects are remembered as having enjoyed certain rights from the early eleventh century. The final chapter discusses how Icelanders perceived Norwegians, and vice-versa, at home and abroad, framing a selection of episodes taken from the Íslendingasögur and konungasögur within the parameters of some of the key principles of identity studies. Particular attention is paid to Icelandic status anxiety and its representation in the sources. The conclusion considers the complexities of the Iceland–Norway relationship and its literary presentation to suggest why the memories of this relationship retained a hold over Icelanders throughout the Commonwealth era and how those memories might enhance our understanding of thirteenthas well as pre-twelfth century Iceland.

10

Simon W. Hall, ‘The History of Orkney Literature’ (PhD diss., University of Glasgow, 2009), p. 3, uses this term to describe Orkney.

chapter 1

Perspectives Old and New

Historical Introduction

Medieval Icelanders are frequently described as being remarkable amongst their European counterparts in possessing a finite human history. Prior to c.860, Iceland was virtually uninhabited save for a few Irish ascetics. Their solitude was abruptly ended following the arrival of a succession of seafarers, all of whom left, although some returned a few years later to establish permanent settlements. The period between c.872 and c.930 is commonly referred to as the Age of Settlement or landnámsöld and it is estimated that somewhere between 10,000–20,000 people came to settle on the island.1 These individuals used a number of different land-taking practices to claim vast swathes of what had hitherto been uninhabited territory. By c.930 all of the best available farmland had been claimed, and the island was declared to be fully settled.2 The landnámsöld was quickly followed by a period of political establishment and consolidation that lasted between c.930 and c.1005. Within this timeframe, the island’s first-law code was promulgated (the Úlfljótslög), its only form of centralized authority was established (the Alþingi) and its legislative and judicial apparatus were put in place. Unlike Norway, which was divided into discrete legal provinces, each with its own law-code, the entire island of Iceland comprised one, albeit large, legal province, administered over by a single lawcode. An annual representative assembly of all the free males on the island, the Alþingi, was convened at Þingvellir for two weeks each summer. It was here that adjustments or amendments to the law-code were considered and adjudicated. Legislative power lay with the Law Council (lögrétta) while judicial power lay with the spring assembly courts (várþingsdómar) and, following the island’s division into Quarters, the Quarter Courts ( fjórðungsdómar) and, later, the Fifth Court ( fimtardómr). The last constitutional development of the Commonwealth era occurred when the island’s two bishops were given seats on the lögrétta. Some thirteen district assemblies, each of which met in two distinct sessions – the sóknarþing and skuldaþing – were dispersed throughout the 1 Vésteinn Ólason, Dialogues with the Viking Age: Narration and Representation in the Sagas of the Icelanders, trans. Andrew Wawn (Reykjavik, 1998), p. 23. 2 íf i, p. 9.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004336513_003

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i­sland. A ­three-tiered assembly system thus operated throughout the island: the Alþingi, Quarter assemblies and springtime assemblies. There was also an annual autumn assembly, known as the leið, which had no judicial role.3 Commonwealth Iceland was a primitive society in the sense that there were no urban centres, villages or fortifications of any kind. Life was rooted in the family and farmstead, although both could vary considerably in terms of size, wealth and power.4 Households, whether ‘simple’ or ‘complex,’ depended on the financial resources of the head of the household.5 There was little specialization of labour across the main categories of individuals – farmer, chieftain – and little to distinguish one from the other as most were engaged in similar economic pursuits.6 Society was decentralized and acephalous, that is to say, there was no single executive authority, and a system of “consensual governance” prevailed.7 Each individual was associated with a particular household and each householder with a particular chieftain (goði, pl. goðar).8 According to the island’s first national history, Íslendingabók, there were thirty-six goðar in 930. Following the subdivision of the island into Quarters and the establishment of the Quarter Courts, this number became thirtynine and then forty-eight. This last adjustment was made on the basis of the Northern Quarter’s specific environment, which required twelve goðar for that region, and the corresponding creation of additional chieftains in the three other Quarters in order that the balance of power was maintained throughout the island.9 The relationship between a goði and his followers, which relied on “negotiable bonds of obligation,”10 was determined by reciprocal support. Without any executive or centralized authority, each islander had to prosecute transgressions made against him or his family in order to obtain restitution. Should he wish to bring a case to court, he was entirely reliant on the support

3 4

Jesse L. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power (Berkeley, 1988), p. 60. William Ian Miller, ‘Some Aspects of Householding in the Medieval Icelandic Commonwealth,’ Continuity and Change, 3, 3 (1988), pp. 324–325. 5 Theodore M. Andersson and William Ian Miller, Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland: Ljósvetninga saga and Valla-Ljóts saga (Stanford, 1989), p. 12. 6 Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature, p. 61. 7 Jesse L. Byock, ‘Governmental Order in Early Medieval Iceland,’ Viator, 17 (1986), pp. ­19–20; Orri Vésteinsson, The Christianization of Iceland: Priests, Power, and Social Change 1000– 1300 (Oxford, 2000), p. 12. 8 Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature, pp. 13, 8. 9 Byock, Medieval Iceland, p. 66. 10 Byock, ‘Governmental Order,’ p. 20.

Perspectives Old and New

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of his goði. If that expected support was not given or seen to be forthcoming, the relationship with his chieftain could be formally ended.11 In the absence of a king or any form of executive authority, the goðar, most of whom claimed noble Norwegian descent, directed island life. These men were not a legally defined class under Icelandic law.12 Their power rested upon mannaforráð (lit. ‘rule over men,’ the authority of a goði), their political ambitions and whatever support they could muster from their þingmenn (assembly men, sng. þingmaðr), all of which was underpinned by their reputation for sagacity and their financial means. As the chieftains’ authority was not territorially based, centres of power shifted frequently. The power of the chieftains lay in their nomination rights: they not only proposed representatives from amongst their þingmenn to attend the Alþingi, they also nominated judges to sit on the various courts and elected the island’s highest official, the lawspeaker (lögsögumaðr). Only chieftains enjoyed voting rights in the lögrétta, where they also reviewed existing legislation and proposed amendments to it. Importantly, the lögrétta also had the power to grant exemptions from the law, and it was this body that negotiated on the island’s behalf in any treaties with external agents.13 The influence the goðar exerted over legislation and the judiciary were where their key powers lay. For this book, the possibility that these individuals also engaged with the Norwegian king for the island’s interests as well as their own, especially as their territorial power bases expanded or were challenged, is of particular relevance. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson has divided the Commonwealth period into three distinct phases.14 The first of these, the ‘establishment phase’ (c.930–1050), was characterized by the existence of numerous chieftains, likely between fifty and sixty in number, among whom a balance of power prevailed. It was probably only during this time that a farmer (bóndi, pl. bændr) could establish himself as a self-made man and obtain a goðorð (the territory controlled by a goði, sng. and pl.). No new chieftaincies were established in the ‘consolidation phase’ 11

12

13 14

William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago, 1990), pp. 22–23. Byock, however, argues that this option was limited by a number of factors including kinship and vicinage; see Byock, ‘Governmental Order,’ p. 22. The right to compensation for injury and the amount prescribed was the same for all free men. Grágás 1a, p. 155; Grágás ii, pp. 202, 313–314, 350, 369, and 390; Bjarni Einarsson, ‘On the Status of Free Men in Society and Saga,’ Mediaeval Scandinavia, 7 (1974), pp. 46–47. Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote and Richard Perkins, ‘Introduction,’ in Laws i, p. 2; Byock, Medieval Iceland, p. 61. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, trans. Jean Lundskær-Nielsen (Odense, 1999), pp. 39–83.

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(c.1050–1220) that followed; rather, the numbers of existing chiefdoms were reduced and from c.1180 a number of large territorial units or domains (ríki, pl. ríkir) began to emerge. By the beginning of the twelfth century, five of these mini-states had been established with two more being created between 1190 and 1220.15 The expansion of the chieftains’ sphere of local power reached its denouement with the creation of the ríkir but a tenuous balance of power was maintained. Jón Viðar’s final phase (c.1220–1264), also referred to as the Age of the Sturlungs (Sturlungaöld), concludes with the island’s submission to Norway in 1262/64. These decades were notable for a series of internal power struggles that removed a number of chieftains, concentrating power in the hands of a discrete number of powerful and well-connected families, including the Ásbirningar, Haukdælir, Oddaverjar, Sturlungar, Svínfellingar and Vatnsfirðingar, who controlled most of the chieftaincies. Attendant with the decline in the number of chieftains was an increase in the influence and power of those who remained in that role. This concentration of power naturally prompted internal discord. Whatever political equilibrium had prevailed was destroyed as the island transitioned from “relatively peaceful political struggles to a state of civil war.”16 A symmetry emerged between internal political instability and conflict and the perceived increased ‘value’ of Norway, and the support of the Norwegian king in particular, in domestic politics. The Sturlungaöld is defined by the Norwegian king’s increased involvement in domestic Icelandic politics. By encouraging the most powerful of the goðar to enter into his service, and then installing those who already possessed a power base to administer his domains, the king became the island’s most powerful chieftain, in territorial terms at least. By 1250 he indirectly managed all of the Icelandic goðorð. Norwegian royal policy toward Iceland intensified and, in 1262/64, the king’s agents obtained the submission of the islanders by means of oath-swearing and the exaction of a tribute payment.17 15

16

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Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, defines these domains as “small states with relatively clear geographical boundaries.” See his ‘Historical Writing and the Political Situation in Iceland 1100–1400,’ in Negotiating Pasts in the Nordic Countries: Interdisciplinary Studies in History and Memory, eds Anne Eriksen and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (Lund, 2009), p. 60. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains, p. 71. For a different perspective, see Jesse L. Byock, ‘The Age of the Sturlungs,’ in Continuity and Change: Political Institutions and Literary Monuments in the Middle Ages, A Symposium, ed. Elisabeth Vestergaard (Odense, 1986), pp. 27–42. Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl, The Incorporation and Integration of the King’s Tributary Lands into the Norwegian Realm c.1195–1397, trans. Alan Crozier (Leiden, 2011), pp. 90–104.

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Alongside the rise of a Norwegian presence in Icelandic affairs were the changes wrought by Christianity to the wealth and influence of the goðar in Iceland in the Commonwealth period. In the absence of a king, the chieftains were responsible for the introduction of Christianity to Iceland in c.999/1000.18 They recognized it as an opportunity to enter a wider European and textual community and to generate additional income. Shortly after the change in faith, the goðar and well-heeled bændr constructed churches on their lands. Following the passing of the Tithe Law in 1096/97, a significant number of church owners ‘gifted’ their lands entirely or in part to the churches on those lands. This was done on the understanding that they and their heirs would maintain the church. These churches were subdivided into bændakirkjur (farmers’ churches, sng. baendakirkja) and staðir (benefices, sng. staðr). The staðir had more economic resources at their disposal than the bændakirkjur, and of the thirty or so principal churches founded in the twelfth century, most were staðir. Not only were these the richest, most well-served churches in the land, many of them had been founded by chieftains who then utilized the educated clerics they had at their disposal to write accounts of the island’s early history in the form of sagas and landnámabækur.19 A number of these churches established themselves as centres of literary learning and output, with two of them becoming schools in the twelfth century.20 By the early twelfth century the island had two bishoprics: the first was established in 1056 at Skálholt in the southern part of the country, and the second was founded in 1106 in the north, at Hólar.21 This brief overview of the political periods within the Commonwealth era underlines the role of the chieftains in directing, influencing and guiding life in Iceland and the role of the Norwegian king. The connections between the Icelandic chieftains and the Norwegian king are of particular relevance to this book. Throughout the Commonwealth period, the Icelandic goðar cultivated their connections to Norway. Claims to Norwegian ancestry and consanguinity with leading families there, including royal houses, were frequently cited. The sons of chieftains often departed Iceland for a period to serve as retainers to the Norwegian king or a court skald. Members of some of Iceland’s most 18

19 20 21

For the dating of the conversion see Ólafía Einarsdóttir, Studier i kronologisk metode i tidlig islandsk historieskrivning (Stockholm, 1964), pp. 72–90, 103–104; and Ólafía Einarsdóttir, ‘Árið 1000,’ Skírnir, 141 (1967), 128–138. This is the conventional collective term for the various versions of Landnámabók. It masks the different textual histories, traditions and motivations behind these works. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Historical Writing,’ pp. 61–62. Vésteinn Ólason, Dialogues, p. 33; Byock, Medieval Iceland, pp. 145–146.

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politically important and powerful families were represented in the bodyguards of Norwegian kings and aristocrats. As power became concentrated in the hands of a few families, Norwegian support – particularly that of the king – grew in importance within the domestic political sphere. This support was often designated by the inclusion of Norwegian men in the domestic retinues of the goðar, as well as access to particular resources. Indeed it is plausible, as Wærdahl contends, that the consolidation of power in Iceland in the hands of a few families who had cultivated, and continued to maintain, close ties with Norway brought the influence of Norwegian governmental structures and conceptions of power to bear on twelfth-century Icelandic politics.22 Of equal importance is the role played by the goðar, and important families such as the Haukdælir and Sturlungar, in documenting the early history of the island and of their own families. The rise of the Haukdælir is bound up with the increasing influence of the Church.23 This family donated the land for the island’s first bishopric at Skálholt, while the first native-born bishops were drawn from its ranks. They benefitted not only financially and socially from this involvement, but also politically. By the end of the twelfth century, they controlled the island’s highest secular office, that of lawspeaker, a monopoly that was not broken until the Sturlungar provided a suitably ‘qualified’ candidate. This domination of the island’s ecclesiastical and secular offices has been attributed to the readiness of the Haukdælir to embrace the new technology of writing.24 Michael Clanchy’s observations on the ideological aspect of the oral-written shift are especially pertinent here.25 According to Clanchy, writing was perceived as a superior form of communication because trust was placed in it. By virtue of their association with literacy, the status of the Haukdælir would have increased along with the ‘value’ assigned to writing. Those that could take advantage of this technological innovation could assure their destiny and legacy for posterity; they could also direct the construction and reconstruction of the past and their place in that past in specific ways. The Haukdælir, who claimed an ancestral blood relationship with the Norwegian royal house and who were involved in the island’s early historiographical 22 Wærdahl, Incorporation, p. 60. 23 The Haukdælir were descended from Ketilbjǫrn enn gamli, who had settled at Mosfell. The family became known as the Haukdælir in the time of Teitr Ísleifsson (d. 1110), who resided at Haukadalur. For simplicity I am not making a distinction between the Mosfellingar and Haukdælir but instead am referring to the family as the Haukdælir throughout. 24 Gísli Sigurðsson, The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition: A Discourse on Method, trans. Nicholas Jones (Cambridge ma, 2004), pp. 90–91. 25 Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 to 1307, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1993), pp. 294–327.

Perspectives Old and New

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projects, demonstrate the connectivity between the preservation of the past and domestic political power, on the one hand, and Norwegian ancestry and links to the king, on the other.

Traditional Perspectives: National Historiography

The specific circumstances and subsequent development of Icelandic society, nineteenth-century romantic nationalism and source criticism have all profoundly influenced scholarly research into the history of the Commonwealth period.26 Studies of the island’s constitutional apparatus and political system have dominated scholarship since the nineteenth century, with historians either charting the island’s political evolution from the landnám (‘land-taking’) to 1262/64 or studying legal history from the ‘timeless’ vantage point of the sagas and law-codes.27 Icelandic historians, in particular, have tended to concentrate on the demise of the Commonwealth, focussing on the dissolution of social order and collapse of the native aristocracy, which characterized 26

27

There are a number of useful English summaries of medieval Icelandic and Norwegian historiography. These include Rolf Torstendahl, ‘Scandinavian Historical Writing,’ in The Oxford History of Historical Writing, vol. 5: Historical Writing Since 1945, eds Axel Schneider and Daniel Woolf (Oxford, 2011), pp. 311–332; Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl, ‘The Norwegian Realm and the Norse World: A Historiographic Approach,’ in The Norwegian Domination and the Norse World, c.1100–c.1400, ed. Steinar Imsen (Trondheim, 2010), pp. 35–57; Wærdahl, Incorporation, pp. 6–10; Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Tendencies in the Historiography on the Medieval Nordic States (to 1350),’ in Public Power in Europe: Studies in Historical Transformations, eds James S. Amelang and Sigfried Beer (Pisa, 2006), pp. 1–15; Nordic Historiography in the 20th Century, eds Frank Meyer and Jan Eivind Myhre (Oslo, 2000); Gunnar Karlsson, ‘A Century of Research on Early Icelandic Society,’ in Viking Revaluations: Viking Society Centenary Symposium 14–15 May 1992, eds Anthony Faulkes and Richard Perkins (London, 1993), pp. 15–25; and Knut Helle, ‘Norway, 800–1200,’ pp. 1–14, in the same volume. Discussions of the island’s legal and constitutional history are associated with the texts of Grágás edited by Vilhjálmur Finsen (Grágás Ia, Ib, ii and iii), together with the scholarship of Jón Sigurðsson, Konrad Maurer and Andreas Heusler, among others. Full publication details can be found in the Bibliography. Studies of Commonwealth Iceland using the sagas and law-codes include Bogi Th. Melsteð, Íslendinga saga, 3 vols (Copenhagen, 1903– 1930); Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, 2 vols in 1, (Reykjavik, 1956–1958); Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga: A History of the Old Icelandic Commonwealth, trans. Haraldur Bessason (Winnipeg, 1974; repr. 2006); Jesse L. Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga (Berkeley, 1982); Byock, Medieval Iceland; Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature; Miller, Bloodtaking; and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains.

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twelfth- and thirteenth-century history. This desire to account for the island’s loss of independence was linked to the concerns of an earlier generation of historians deeply influenced by the Icelandic quest for independence from Danish overlordship between 1830 and 1944.28 For these individuals, the independent status enjoyed by the medieval Icelandic state was indelibly associated with two totems of Icelandic distinctiveness: the island’s constitution (preserved in Grágás) and the Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders). These two different types of sources, the one normative and the other narrative, attracted scholars from different disciplines: as legal historians began studying the law-codes, the saga narratives became the remit of literary scholars. This source discrimination was amplified by the Quellenkritik of the German historical school with its narrow conception of historical methodology and resulted in greater credence being placed in the law-codes as historical sources and a corresponding lack of trust in the saga narratives.29 By the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, two different schools of thought emerged, each fostering a particular view of the sagas and their origins. The debate over saga origins has been written about extensively elsewhere, so it will only be touched upon briefly here.30 The two divergent views, labelled Freiprosa and Buchprosa by Andreas Heusler,31 were based on different source-critical assessments of saga realism. Ted Andersson has summarized the debate thus: “Bookprosaists and freeprosaists can often be in substantial agreement on what the sources of a saga were but rarely on the form of those sources or the way in which the saga author used them.”32 Where the ­Freeprosists claimed the sagas as orally-transmitted compositions contemporaneous with the events they described which had then been memorized verbatim until such time as they were preserved in written form, the Bookprosists 28

For a discussion of medieval Icelandic history, historians and the pursuit of independence see Jesse L. Byock, ‘History and the Sagas: The Effect of Nationalism,’ in From Sagas to Society: Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfield Lock, 1992), pp. 43–59; and Gunnar Karlsson, ‘Icelandic Nationalism and the Inspiration of History,’ in The Roots of Nationalism: Studies in Northern Europe, ed. Rosalind Mitchison (Edinburgh, 1980), pp. 77–89. 29 Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Tendencies,’ pp. 3–4. 30 The seminal work on saga criticism and the origins of these narratives is Theodore M.  ­Andersson, The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins: A Historical Survey (New Haven, 1964). 31 Andreas Heusler, Die Anfänge der isländischen Saga (Berlin, 1914), pp. 53–55. A freeprosist, Heusler is associated with a key statement of this theory (pp. 60–61). 32 Andersson, Problem, p. 79.

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declared these narratives to be the product of medieval Icelandic authors with fertile imaginations who cobbled together their accounts from a blend of oral and native tradition, foreign learning and personal experience.33 The contentions of the Bookprosists were disseminated by the editors of the Hið íslenzka fornritafélag (Old Textual Society or íf), known as the ‘Icelandic school.’34 They responded robustly to what they perceived to be the ‘Germanicization’ of the sagas and their use as sources for studies of aspects of Germanic history.35 By emphasizing that the sagas were the products of Icelandic authors who had been immersed in an intrinsically Icelandic culture that had developed over the lifespan of the Commonwealth, they categorized medieval Icelandic narratives into two groups: the fictitious and the historical. U ­ nwilling – or unable – to see Icelandic social and cultural history as an aggregate of traditions from pre-literate and literate periods, the Icelandic school and its supporters interpreted Icelandic history from a political or constitutional perspective, not a social one.36 By virtually dismissing the historical value of an entire category of Icelandic sources, namely the sagas, the íf editors effectively decided that pre-twelfth century Icelandic society was an unknown and irrecoverable artefact lost to time. This judgement is perhaps the most infelicitous legacy of the íf, for not only did historians lose confidence in the sagas as historical sources, but saga-scholars, now deprived of ‘social narratives,’ lost interest in studying society through the sagas.37 The Freeprose-Bookprose debate may have exhausted itself, but an “unhappy association between realism and reality has remained.”38 This unease 33

On saga authors and saga writing see M.I. Steblin-Kamenskij, ‘An Attempt at a Semantic Approach to the Problem of Authorship in Old Icelandic Literature,’ Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 81 (1966), p. 25, who locates höfundur, the Icelandic word for ‘author,’ in the eighteenth century; and Matthew J. Driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve: The Production, Dissemination and Reception of Popular Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland (Enfield Lock, 1997), p. 55, who remarks that the sagas “were not thought as being ‘by’ anyone” as recently as the ninteenth century. 34 The íf was established by Jón Ásbjörnsson in 1928 and commenced publication of its editions of medieval Icelandic narratives in 1933. For further see Gísli Sigurðsson, Medieval Icelandic Saga, p. 20; and Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, ‘Íslenski skólinn’, Skírnir, 165 (1991), 103–129. 35 Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature, p. viii. 36 Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature, p. x. 37 Gunnar Karlsson, ‘Research,’ p. 18. 38 Paul Bibire, ‘On Reading the Icelandic Sagas: Approaches to Old Icelandic Texts,’ in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement Before 1300 – A Fest-

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remains evident in the use of sagas, particularly the Íslendingasögur, as historical sources. Simply put, modern conceptualizations of ‘truth,’ ‘history’ and ‘fiction’ cannot be applied to medieval texts that predate the positivistic definition of these critical terms. To counter this problem, Steblin-Kamenskij suggested a concept of ‘syncretic truth,’ a rather ill-defined notion lying somewhere between historical truth and artistic truth.39 He argued that the sagas were perceived by their intended (and unintended) audiences as truthful accounts insofar as the information they contained had been believed to be true by those who had memorized and recorded them. Our failure to understand the sagas, Steblin-Kamenskij argued, is twofold: it centres on our own shortcomings and inability to relate to and understand the ‘spiritual world’ which produced these texts,40 in addition to our overly literal conception of what ‘truth’ is. In short, they are the quintessence of a world we will never be able to fully access or understand. Just because a medieval Icelandic author opted to write history in the form of a saga does not mean that these works should be considered ahistorical. Sagas were, after all, the native narrative form and were used to document the island’s early history as well as the history of the Norwegian kings. What these texts do offer scholars, however, is an opportunity to obtain an interpretation of early Icelandic society and, when used in conjunction with other sources, they facilitate the revelation of additional hypotheses as to how that society operated and viewed itself.41 Where studies of medieval Iceland and the extant sources were primarily concerned with untangling the relationships between texts, as well as the identification of their authors and sources, more recent scholarship has attempted to situate these documents within their social, historical and literary contexts. Since the 1970s, research into medieval Iceland has not only embraced social schrift in Honour of Dr Barbara E. Crawford, eds Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Leiden, 2007), p. 11. 39 M.I. Steblin-Kamenskij, The Saga Mind, trans. Kenneth H. Ober (Odense, 1973), pp. 50–51, defines ‘syncretic truth’ as “what is thought of as simply truth, something given, not created”. In ‘On the Nature of Fiction in the Saga of the Icelanders,’ Scandinavica, 6 (1967), 77–84, he identifies two forms of fiction: latent and patent. Responses to Steblin-Kamenskij’s hypotheses include Peter Hallberg, ‘The Syncretic Saga Mind: A Discussion of a New Approach to the Icelandic Sagas,’ Mediaeval Scandinavia, 7 (1974), 102–117; and Joseph Harris, ‘Saga as Historical Novel,’ in Structure and Meaning in Old Norse Literature: New Approaches to Textual Analysis and Literary Criticism, eds John Lindow, Lars Lönnroth and Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Odense, 1986), pp. 187–219. 40 Steblin-Kamenskij, Saga Mind, pp. 12–13. 41 My contention here echoes the sentiments of Patricia Pires Boulhosa, Icelanders and the Kings of Norway: Mediaeval Sagas and Legal Texts (Leiden, 2005), p. 39.

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and cultural history but also methodological approaches traditionally associated with the social sciences.42 In particular, a number of international scholars have usefully brought anthropological theory to bear on early Icelandic history, examining aspects of the medieval past according to a posited social continuum. Studies such as those by Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Jesse Byock and William Ian Miller have rehabilitated the use of the sagas as historical sources by mining these narratives for social and cultural information.43 Valuable contributions in this vein have also been made by Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Helgi Þorláksson and E. Paul Durrenberger, all of whom have moved away from a structuralist and static approach in favour of an emphasis on the dynamic character of medieval Iceland.44 Overall, however, studies of events that took place prior to 1264, events that are difficult to document through a lack of available sources, have become unfashionable. Accordingly, most recent works have tended to focus on later periods, for which there are more sources available. Until recently, medieval Scandinavian historical research has been dominated by national paradigms. Given the long-standing emphasis on constitutional history and the desire to establish the glorious distant past of the medieval Icelandic state to justify more recent claims to autonomy, it is hardly surprising that considerations of the early relationship between Iceland and Norway remain few and far between. Those few works that do exist tend to deal with the topic indirectly and do not use a wide source base. Kirsten Hastrup, for instance, has studied early Icelandic identity formation within the context

42

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44

Icelandic social history is associated with the work of Gunnar Karlsson, particularly his ‘Goðar og bændur,’ Saga, 10 (1972), 5–57, and the ensuing debate with Helgi Þorláksson (‘Helgi Þorláksson Svarar,’ Saga, 21 (1983), 275–279) as to the precise nature of the political, financial and social bonds between goðar and bændr. The rehabilitation of the sagas using anthropology and the literary approach of the ‘new’ freeprose theory is discussed by Helgi Þorláksson in ‘Að vita sann á sögunum. Hvaða vitneskju geta Íslendingasögurnar veitt um íslenskt þjóðfélag fyrir 1200?’, Ný saga, 1 (1987), 87–96. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, Saga og samfund: En indføring i oldislandsk litteratur (Copenhagen, 1977); Byock, Medieval Iceland; William Ian Miller, ‘Choosing the Avenger: Some Aspects of the Bloodfeud in Medieval Iceland and England,’ Law and History Review, 1 (1983), 159–204; Miller, ‘Avoiding Legal Judgment: The Submission of Disputes to Arbitration in Medieval Iceland,’ American Journal of Legal History, 28 (1984), 95–134; Miller, ‘Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies in the Negotiation and Classification of Exchange in Medieval Iceland,’ Speculum, 61 (1986), 18–50. Full publication details for these works can be found in the Bibliography.

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of the settlers’ Norwegian heritage and ancestry.45 Although she utilizes the structuralist frameworks of social anthropology to discuss a range of subjects, including spatial and temporal issues, she has eschewed the wealth of detail in saga narratives, preferring to use ‘professional’ texts such as the law-codes and scientific material.46 The more recent monographs by Shami Ghosh and Ármann Jakobsson restrict their discussions of Icelandic identity vis-à-vis Norway to the konungasögur,47 while those by Patricia Pires Boulhosa and Martin Arnold limit themselves to normative and narrative sources composed in the period following the island’s submission to Norway.48 Some consideration has also been given to Iceland in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, flagging a return of sorts to constitutional history, albeit often framed within the context of the introduction of the Norwegian administrative apparatus to the island.49 All of the aforementioned, however, focus on a period significantly later than that under examination in the present work. While a gap exists in Icelandic scholarship on the subject of how Norway related to Iceland between c.870 and c.1100, a similar lacuna is also apparent in Norwegian scholarship. Some of this was due to the focus of Norwegian ­national historiographers, notably Rudolf Keyser and Peter Andreas Munch, on the formation and emergence of the medieval Norwegian state. This, in turn, provided a platform for the perspectives of the Norwegian historical school, 45

Kirsten Hastrup, Culture and History in Medieval Iceland: An Anthropological Analysis of Structure and Change (Oxford, 1985); and other works in the Bibliography. 46 Gunnar Karlsson, ‘Research,’ p. 22, is sceptical of some of Hastrup’s contentions. See also Jenny Jochens, ‘Marching to a Different Drummer: New Trends in Medieval Icelandic Scholarship. A Review Article,’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 35, 1 (1993), p. 200. On anthropological approaches more generally, see Arnved Nedkvitne, ‘Beyond Historical Anthropology in the Study of Medieval Mentalities,’ Scandinavian Journal of History, 25 (2000), 27–51; and Orning, Unpredictability, pp. 20–28. 47 Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas; Ármann Jakobsson, A Sense of Belonging: Morkinskinna and Icelandic Identity, c.1220, trans. Fredrik Heinemann (Odense, 2014). Sverre Bagge considers the Iceland–Norway relationship in his discussion of Snorri’s historical context in his Society and Politics in Snorri Sturluson’s ‘Heimskringla’ (Berkeley, 1991), pp. 237–240. 48 Boulhosa, Icelanders; Martin Arnold, The Post-Classical Icelandic Family Saga (Lewiston ny, 2003). 49 Axel Kristinsson, ‘Embættismenn konungs fyrir 1400,’ Saga, 36 (1998), 113–152. The economic relationship between Iceland and Norway has been discussed by Helgi Þorláksson in Vaðmál og verðlag: Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld (Reykjavik, 1991), pp. 507–515; and ‘King and Commerce. The Foreign Trade of Iceland in Medieval Times and the Impact of Royal Authority,’ in Norwegian Domination, ed. Imsen, pp. 149–173. See also Patricia Pires Boulhosa’s ‘Of Fish and Ships in Medieval Iceland,’ pp. 175–197, in the same volume.

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which, influenced by nineteenth-century nationalist and imperialist attitudes, viewed Iceland and the other tributary islands (skattlǫnd, sng. skattland) as Norway’s colonial territories overseas. The role of the king, his sources of power and the relationship between king, ecclesiastics and lay nobility, was investigated by Jens Arup Seip50 in 1940 but very little attention was given to the role of the king and his policy relative to the wider Norse world. This changed in the 1960s when Knut Helle51 argued that Norwegian royal policy had been fundamentally changed in the thirteenth century by the inclusion of the tributary islands within the realm. Significant work on Norway has been done recently by Randi Bjørshol Wærdahl,52 and a four-volume series, edited by Steinar Imsen, on the medieval Norwegian kingdom and its outlying dependencies has recently been published.53 While this project will undoubtedly enhance an understanding of the political, economic and ecclesiastical relationships between Norway and the wider Norse world, its timeframe, like that of Wærdahl’s publication, lies after that of the present study. It is notable how little overall impact the topic of the early Icelandic–Norwegian relationship, particularly between the ninth and twelfth centuries, has made on the historiography of both countries. The removal of this element from the discussion has resulted in difficulty discerning the nature of early Icelandic independence, as well as the character of a key aspect of medieval Norwegian foreign policy. The present works aims to fill this gap in the scholarship, and will help to explain the later bond between the two countries, as well as the bonds that existed between Norway and the wider Norse world.

50

J.A. Seip, ‘Problemer og metode i norsk middelalderforskning,’ Historisk tidsskrift (Norway), 32 (1940–42), 49–133. For a consideration of the national perspective in medieval Norwegian historical scholarship, see Knut Helle, ‘Tendenser i nyere norsk høymiddelalderforskning’, Historisk tidsskrift (Norway), 40 (1960–61), 337–370. 51 Knut Helle, Norge blir en stat 1130–1319, 2nd edn (Bergen, 1974), pp. 87–94, 118–126; and Helle, ‘The Norwegian Kingdom: Succession, Disputes and Consolidation,’ in The Cambridge History of Scandinavia, vol. 1: Prehistory to 1520, ed. Knut Helle (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 369–391. 52 Wærdahl, Incorporation. 53 Steinar Imsen, ed., Norwegian Domination; Taxes, Tributes and Tributary Lands in the Making of the Scandinavian Kingdoms in the Middle Ages (Trondheim, 2011); ‘Ecclesia Nidrosiensis’ and ‘Noregs veldi’: The Role of the Church in the Making of Norwegian Domination in the Norse World (Trondheim, 2012); and Legislation and State Formation: Norway and its Neighbours in the Middle Ages (Trondheim, 2013). This series is complemented by another work, Rex Insularum: The King of Norway and his ‘Skattlands’ as a Political System c.1260–c.1450 (Bergen, 2014), also edited by Imsen.

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New Perspectives: Memory

Jürg Glauser has written that “every culture is to a significant degree defined by the way it relates to its own past and defines itself through memory”; he continues, “the history of human culture can only be understood when its memorial practices are adequately taken into account.”54 This statement is suggestive not only of the centrality of the memory of the past to human consciousness, but of memory to culture. A burgeoning interdisciplinary and, some might suggest, transdisciplinary field since the 1970s, memory has become a central research topic in academia, with its terminology now firmly embedded in the discourse of a wide range of subjects within the humanities, social sciences and sciences.55 A variety of views and approaches to memory exist with little consensus on the matter. This contemporary academic – and public – interest in memory has been described by one scholar as a “boom of unprecedented proportions.”56 It can be traced back, on the one hand, to the historical and political upheavals of two world wars, the Holocaust and the collapse of the former Soviet bloc, which resulted in significant changes being wrought to forms of cultural remembrance and the transmission of experience, and, on the other, the culmination of the shift away from the investigative ambits of ‘traditional’ history towards hitherto marginal or peripheral themes. This thematic adjustment was often accompanied by a corresponding exegetical move away from ‘society’ to ‘culture.’57 The concern of memory scholars is, by and large, the creation, negotiation and dissemination of memory, both temporally and spatially. Within memory work itself, studies of constructions of the past relate to a wide investigative 54 55

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Jürg Glauser, foreword to Minni and Muninn: Memory in Medieval Nordic Culture, eds Pernille Hermann, Stephen A. Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir (Turnhout, 2014), p. vii. Notable handbooks include Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook, eds Astrid Erll and Ansgar Nünning (Berlin, 2008); Gedächtnis und Erinnerung: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, eds Christian Gudehus, Ariane Eichenberg and Harald Welzer (Stuttgart-Weimar, 2010); Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates, eds Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (Fordham ny, 2010); and The Collective Memory Reader, eds Jeffrey K. Olick, Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi and Daniel Levy (New York, 2011). The area has its own designated journal, Memory Studies (2008), and several book series, including Palgrave Macmillan’s ‘Memory Studies,’ Routledge’s ‘Studies in Memory and Narrative’ and De Gruyter’s ‘Media and Cultural Memory Studies.’ Andreas Huyssen, Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (London, 1995), p. 5. Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich, 1992), p. 11.

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field that is in part defined by issues pertaining to transmission and media, preservation and storage, as well as a number of binary oppositions such as remembering and forgetting, factuality and fiction. Medieval studies have been a particular beneficiary of the renewed interest in memory and its accompanying methodological and conceptual toolkits. Just as the Latin word memoria and its semantic designations denoted a range of interconnected meanings, historians have taken a similar range of approaches to the study of medieval memory in its various forms. Where one group of scholars have been primarily interested in studying the ‘rituals of remembering’ or ‘arts of memory’: the classical intellectual traditions of memoria, mnemonics and memorization,58 and others concerned with studying the contents of memory as preserved in constructions of the past or historiography,59 the approaches most pertinent to this book are those studies reconstructing how individuals and groups remembered. These investigations scrutinize historical accounts of the past and the role played by literary memory in the formal organization and dissemination of cultural (or ‘collective’, ‘social’) memory.60 In this vein historical texts have been placed within the analytical framework of literary criticism61 and, more recently, evaluated according to an understanding of the construction, function and operation of memory and the manner in which it is recorded in the history writing of the early Middle Ages.62 These inquiries are concerned with the ways people remembered and the narrative frameworks that structured, transmitted and reconstructed those memories for individuals and groups. 58

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F.A. Yates, The Art of Memory (London, 1966); Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 1990); and Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories: Studies in the Reconstruction of the Past (Cambridge, 1992). Historiography is, of course, the study of those memoranda that were deemed suitable for preservation and onward transmission. There is a large bibliography on medieval historiography. Worthy of mention are Geschichtsdenken und Geschichtsbild im Mittelalter, ed. Walther Lammers (Darmstadt, 1965); Bernard Guenée, Histoire et culture historique dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris, 1980); Hans-Werner Goetz, Geschichtsschreibung und Geschichtsbewußtsein im hohen Mittelalter (Berlin, 1999); Medieval Concepts of the Past: Ritual, Memory, Historiography, eds Gerd Althoff, Johannes Fried and Patrick J. Geary (Cambridge, 2002); Writing Medieval History, ed. Nancy Partner (London, 2005); and Rosamond McKitterick, Perceptions of the Past in the Early Middle Ages (Notre Dame, 2006). James Fentress and Chris Wickham, Social Memory (Oxford, 1992). See esp. the works by Hayden White in the Bibliography. The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages, eds Yitzhak Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge, 2000); The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe, ed. Paul Magdalino (London, 1992).

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What has emerged from these works is an enhanced understanding of literacy, its different contexts, functions and relationship with orality.63 Studies of memory, then, cover the phenomena of creating, recording, storing and transmitting the past. The common thread running through each of these discrete investigative approaches is their conceptualization of memory as a phenomenon constructed or constituted by an active process that results in the restructuring and transformation of its content. While it is not within the scope of this book to provide a comprehensive account of memory’s vicissitudes or, indeed, a historiographical review of scholarship in what is a very dispersed and diverse field, the contributions of two scholars to memory studies are of particular relevance. A French sociologist who worked in the tradition of Émile Durkheim, Maurice Halbwachs published his pioneering study on the social frameworks of memory, Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, in 1925.64 Rejecting a biological theory of racial memory in favour of viewing memory as a social construct derived from social interaction, Halbwachs is credited with the introduction of the term ‘collective memory’ into scholarly discourse.65 He conceptualized memory in terms of social interaction, arguing that collective remembrance took place within social frameworks, whether family, religious community or, more recently, nation. These frameworks, which pre-existed the act of recollection, acted as a seedbed, and generated an agreed upon version of the past in which some aspects of that past were emphasized over others. The interactive process of identifying and agreeing upon suitable memories, which is also suggestive of the intrinsic value and worth of some experiences over others, contributes to the development of a shared group identity.66 The manner in which these memories are communicated, and the form in which they are then transmitted, draws together issues of literacy, orality and historiography. Although highly influential, Halbwachs’s work is problematic in its terminology and analysis.67 His conceptualization of social frameworks is rather 63 64

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Rosamond McKitterick, History and Memory in the Carolingian World (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 161–162. A valuable selection of Halbwachs’s writings can be found in Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, ed. and trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago, 1992). On Halbwachs’s formulation and use of collective memory, see Patrick Hutton, History as an Art of Memory (Hanover nh, 1993), pp. 73–90. Kerwin Lee Klein, ‘On the Emergence of Memory in Historical Discourse,’ Representations, 69 (2000), p. 127, notes that Hugo von Hofmannsthal used the phrase in 1902. Catherine Cubitt, ‘Memory and Narrative in the Cult of Early Anglo-Saxon Saints,’ in Uses of the Past, eds Hen and Innes, p. 31. Marc Bloch, ‘Mémoire collective, tradition et coutume: A propos d’un livre récent’, Revue de Synthèse Historique, 40 (1925), 73–83, was particularly critical of Halbwachs’s impor-

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static and, as Ann Rigney states, ignores the reciprocity that exists between those frameworks and the acts of memorialization they enclose and mediate, which in turn differentiate groups from one another.68 These frameworks are not passive monoliths but are active agents in the production and definition of memory. Even more problematic are the series of oppositions Halbwachs posited between, on the one hand, individual and collective memory, and on the other hand, collective memory and history. This latter dichotomy has proved to be one of the more enduring and contentious legacies of Halbwachs’s work and has directed the interest of some scholars to the history of memory and how memory operates in an historical perspective. In his multi-volume study of French memory sites, Lieux de mémoire, Pierre Nora reconfigured this opposition to posit an even more entrenched polarity between memory (emotionalized, experiential) and history (cold, dry facts).69 However, history, the desire to understand and explain change over time, is closely connected to the way in which people formulate memories in reaction to different conditions.70 Both history and memory are subject to “conscious or unconscious selection, interpretation and distortion. In both cases this selection, interpretation and distortion is socially conditioned.”71 It is thus altogether more useful to see history and memory as different modes of remembering. Where Halbwachs emphasized the social aspect of memory, the work of the German Egyptologist, Jan Assmann, is governed by a ‘cultural turn.’ The cultural approach to memory studies is based on the contention that collective

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tation of terms from ­individual psychology and their subsequent ‘collectivization.’ This criticism aside, Bloch was not averse to using the phrase mémoire collective himself in his analysis of peasant customs and the importance of grandparents as the bearers of tradition (p. 79). Ann Rigney, ‘Divided Pasts: A Premature Memorial and the Dynamics of Collective Remembrance,’ Memory Studies, 1, 1 (2008), p. 95. Pierre Nora, ‘Between History and Memory: Les Lieux de Mémoire,’ Representations, 26 (1989), 7–24. Alon Confino, ‘Memory and the History of Mentalities,’ in Cultural Memory Studies, eds Erll and Nünning, p. 77, considers Les lieux de mémoire as the inaugural work of present-day memory studies. The distinction Nora makes between history and memory is, for many, untenable. See the respective remarks of Wulf Kansteiner, ‘Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies’, History and Theory, 41 (2002), pp. 183–184; Ann Rigney, ‘Portable Monuments: Literature, Cultural Memory, and the Case of Jeanie Deans’, Poetics Today, 25, 2 (2004), pp. 361–365; and Astrid Erll, ‘Cultural Memory Studies: An Introduction’, in Cultural Memory Studies, eds Erll and Nünning, pp. 6–7. David Thelen, ‘Memory and American History,’ Journal of American History, 75, 4 (1989), p. 1118. Peter Burke, ‘History as Social Memory,’ in Memory: History, Culture and the Mind, ed. Thomas Butler (Oxford, 1989), p. 98.

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memories of the past are not inadvertently produced or ad hoc, but are the result of cultural mediation. Memories of the past are reified and shaped by different cultural forms and processes, be they visual, textual or ritual.72 In the late 1980s and 1990s, Assmann revived and refined Halbwachs’s theory of collective memory and the role played by social matrices in the framing and dissemination of memory. He placed the culture of ancient Egypt within a contemporary theoretical framework derived from the social sciences (sociology, anthropology) and humanities (literary studies) to identify four discrete categories of collective memory: ‘material memory,’ ‘mimetic memory,’ ‘communicative memory’ and ‘cultural memory.’73 Drawing on a synthesis of comparative, phenomenological and structural analysis, Assmann’s work marks a shift away from the polarity that existed between history and memory and thus from the theoretical legitimacy lent to this opposition by Halbwachs. Where Halbwachs sought to unravel the intellectual difference between lived tradition and the learned re-creation of the past, Assmann examines how communities attach themselves to a range of different forms of cultural evocation in order to generate a self-image that is endorsed and validated by the past. Of particular significance was the process by which more lasting ways of preserving and transmitting memories to later generations were sought (cultural memory) as contact with the original generation (communicative memory) waned. Cultural memory endures because it is preserved by mechanisms, such as writing, that fix it and maintain its presence beyond those who bear it. By contrast, communicative memory is characterized by mundane, banal, faceto-face interactions that are liable to a predetermined lifespan.74 According to Assmann, where communicative memory is defined by its proximity to the everyday, cultural memory is distinguished by its temporal remove from the everyday.75 Furthermore, the preservation and transmission of cultural memory is the remit of particular ‘memory specialists,’ such as poets, chroniclers and priests.76 These individuals are present in both oral and literate societies, even 72

Marek Tamm, ‘Beyond History and Memory: New Perspectives in Memory Studies,’ ­ istory Compass, 11, 6 (2013), p. 461. H 73 ‘Communicative memory,’ which was rooted in the authority of the ‘original generation’ and characterized by informal, everyday face-to-face communication, is synonymous with Halbwachs’s ‘collective memory.’ 74 Jan Assmann, ‘Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,’ New German Critique, 65 (1995), p. 126. 75 Assmann, ‘Collective Memory,’ pp. 128–129. 76 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, p. 54; Jan Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory,’ in Cultural Memory Studies, eds Erll and Nünning, p. 114. See Jacques Le Goff, History and Memory, trans. Steven Rendall and Elizabeth Claman (New York, 1992), pp. 56–57, and references therein.

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if their constructions of the past are transmitted in different media.77 Memory specialists are discussed in more detail later in this chapter. Cultural memory “comprises that body of reusable texts, images, and rituals specific to each society in each epoch, whose ‘cultivation’ serves to stabilize and convey that society’s self-image.”78 The repository of identity, cultural memory is structured around fixed points, which Assmann calls ‘figures of memory’ (Erinnerungsfiguren).79 Through these fixed points cultural memory controls which events are recorded. Each subsequent generation then relates these events to their own contemporary contexts. This process reveals the centrality of cultural memory to history writing: its fixed points govern the cognitive structure within which the past is understood, acquires meaning and from which history develops.80 If, as Rigney suggests, we do not read ‘cultivation’ as a passive process, then Assmann’s conceptualization of cultural memory allows for an emphasis to be placed on the mobilizing function of a literary canon in the construction of cultural memory. This dynamism emphasizes proactive engagement in the present with aspects of the past in the expression of a sense of self. Elements of the past are reused and retooled, in turn generating “the sense of community stretching across time and space.”81 This process not only endorses a group’s sense of itself: it communicates it to members and non-members alike. Assmann’s conceptualization of cultural memory sees the conversion of factual history into remembered history (erinnerte Geschichte). The medium of remembered history, through which collective memories of the distant past can be expressed, is myth.82 Myth is foundational (and formative) history and Assmann stresses its ‘Mythomotorik’ effect.83 It constructs the identity of a 77

Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory,’ pp. 114–115, writes that in oral societies “a fixed text is verbally ‘written’ into the highly specialized and trained memory of these specialists.” 78 Assmann, ‘Collective Memory,’ p. 132. 79 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 37–42, 168; Assmann, ‘Collective Memory,’ p. 129. 80 Assmann, ‘Collective Memory’, pp. 129–130. See also the comments of Marek Tamm, ‘History as Cultural Memory: Mnemohistory and the Construction of the Estonian Nation’, Journal of Baltic Studies, 39, 4 (2008), p. 501. 81 Ann Rigney, ‘Embodied Communities: Commemorating Robert Burns, 1859,’ Representations, 115, 1 (2011), p. 81. 82 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, p. 52; Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge MA, 1997), p. 14. Brian Sparkes, ‘Classical Greek Attitudes to the Past’, in Who Needs the Past? Indigenous Values and Archaeology, ed. Robert Layton (London, 1989), p. 129, writes: “the past [...] was not what actually happened, it was what was remembered”. 83 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 78–83, 168, 169, 209, 229, 288 and 296.

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group through the construction of a shared past or collective memory. There is no shortage of foundation myths in medieval Icelandic literature. Tales of migration and settlement are characteristic of foundation narratives and the landnám (‘land-taking’) is a mythically charged key point of reference in many different texts. These narratives, which establish different forms of the past, emphasize the close relationship between myth and history, on the one hand, and memory and history, on the other. Each element is a “transforming and creative activity, not merely a direct recording of past phenomena.”84 Indeed for Assmann, the way in which historical events and phenomena are remembered and recalled can make the remembrance of these events more important than their actual occurrence or perceived significance (or insignificance) at the time of their occurrence. This prompts consideration of mnemohistory. Assmann uses the term ‘mnemohistory’ to describe the manner in which cultural memory generates identity through the “past as it is remembered.”85 The goal of mnemohistory is not to establish the historical ‘factuality’ of a tradition but its ‘actuality.’86 It analyses the primacy assigned to the past by the present.87 It is “reception theory applied to history.”88 It is through mnemohistory that the past wields its influence on the present and the future. Mnemohistory interrogates the past, the selection of its content, its appropriation by the present, the form in which it is disseminated and the manner of its commemoration. Like Halbwachs before him, Assmann’s model of cultural memory has been highly influential. While Assmann makes no claim to explicate a theory of cultural memory, he nonetheless fails to delineate precisely what he means by ‘culture’ and ‘memory.’89 Other criticisms levelled at Assmann’s model concern “the failure of its historical examples to match the broad claims of the theory” as well as his lack of attention to, and perhaps respect for, the ars memoria as “mental navigational tools in aid of new compositions.”90 The applicability

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Diana Whaley, ‘A Useful Past: Historical Writing in Medieval Iceland,’ in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Margaret Clunies Ross (Cambridge, 2000), p. 175. 85 Assmann, Moses, p. 9. 86 Assmann, Moses, p. 9. 87 Assmann, Moses, p. 10. 88 Assmann, Moses, p. 9. 89 Compare the comments of Aleida Assmann, Erinnerungsräume: Formen und Wandlungen des kulturellen Gedächtnisses (Munich, 1999), p. 16. 90 Mary Carruthers, review of Jan Assmann Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination in History Workshop Journal, 77 (2014), pp. 279, 280.

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of his terminology, which originates in studies of ancient cultures, to modern societies, is also problematic. One aspect of Assmann’s model that does require modification is his polarization of orality and writing, for instance in his analysis of the cultural import of writing in ancient Egypt. This opposition is not as apparent in later cultures, and the case of medieval Iceland, in particular, suggests an ongoing fluid and reciprocal exchange between oral and written forms in their constructions of the past. In her study of early Irish literacy, Elva Johnston stresses that elite education and literacy are not synonymous. Oral learning was not shelved or cast-off once literacy and learning had been established; rather, the two co-existed. The border between popular lore and elite learning remained permeable, suspended in a continuous inventive/creative interchange/exchange, “even if attitudes towards it [oral learning] varied according to time and place.”91 A system of “continuous mutual coproduction” existed.92 Orality and popular traditions served to enrich and often complicate the reconstruction of the past. This is particularly evident in the case of medieval Iceland and especially so in the texts under examination. Concepts such as ‘collective memory,’ ‘communicative memory,’ ‘cultural memory’ and ‘social memory’ are all applicable to studies of Old Norse–­ Icelandic culture and its literary products, and interest in this research has increased in the past decade among historians of medieval Scandinavia. The Fifteenth International Saga Conference that convened at Aarhus in 2012 had as its theme ‘Sagas and the Use of the Past,’ while a recent edition of the academic journal Scandinavian Studies was dedicated to memory. A number of useful essay collections on the place of memory in medieval Scandinavia and constructions of the past have also contributed to the debate in this area.93 While a systematic and critical study of memory in Commonwealth Iceland has yet to be undertaken, a number of scholars have framed their examinations of some of its literary products within the parameters of memory studies. The Danish literary and cultural historian, Pernille Hermann, has studied different forms of memory preserved in Old Icelandic texts, focussing in particular on Landnámabók, Íslendingabók and the sagas; she is also interested in 91 92 93

Elva Johnston, Literacy and Identity in Medieval Ireland (Woodbridge, 2013), p. 21. Rigney, ‘Embodied Communities,’ p. 87. For example, the aforementioned Minni and Muninn, eds Hermann, Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, and Negotiating Pasts, eds Eriksen and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson. Diana Whaley’s survey of medieval Icelandic historiography also makes a valuable contribution, although her classification of what constitutes a ‘historical’ text is not entirely convincing: Whaley, ‘A Useful Past,’ pp. 161–202.

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mnemotechniques.94 Principles derived from memory studies and cultural geography have been invoked by Eleanor Rosamond Barraclough in her study of foundation narratives and land-naming, which draws upon Landnámabók and a number of family sagas.95 Landnámabók is also the subject of Gísli Sigurðsson’s examination of the uses of the past in the present,96 while John Lindow considers some of the elaborate memory imagery of Norse mythology.97 Chris Callow, meanwhile, has directed his attention toward aspects of political memory in his consideration of how the family sagas incorporate descriptions of political topography and centres of power that are more representative of their time of writing than the time in which those accounts are ostensibly set.98 Jürg Glauser has framed his discussion of the Íslendingasögur as cultural documents within Assmann’s theoretical parameters.99 Where Glauser considers cultural memory, in their respective studies Judith Jesch reflects on diasporic memory, Jesse Byock on social memory and Else Mundal on the relationship

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Pernille Hermann, ‘Key Aspects of Memory and Remembering in Old Norse–Icelandic Literature,’ in Minni and Muninn, eds Hermann, Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, pp. ­13–39; Hermann, ‘Saga Literature, Cultural Memory, and Storage,’ Scandinavian Studies, 85, 3 (2013), 332–354; Hermann, ‘Founding Narratives and the Representation of Memory in Saga Literature,’ arv Nordic Yearbook of Folklore, 77 (2010), 69–87; Hermann, ‘Spatial and Temporal Perspectives in Íslendingabók: Historiography and Social Structures,’ Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 1 (2005), 73–89; and Hermann and Stephen Mitchell, ‘Constructing the Past: Introductory Remarks,’ Scandinavian Studies, 85, 3 (2013), 261–266. Mnemotechniques have also been considered by Margaret Clunies Ross: ‘Authentication of Poetic Memory in Old Norse Skaldic Verse,’ in Minni and Muninn, eds Hermann, Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, pp. 59–74. Eleanor Rosamond Barraclough, ‘Naming the Landscape in the Landnám Narratives of the Íslendingasögur and Landnámabók’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 36 (2012), 79–101. Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Constructing a Past to Suit the Present: Sturla Þórðarson on Conflicts and Alliances with King Haraldr hárfagri,’ in Minni and Muninn, eds Hermann, Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, pp. 175–196. John Lindow, ‘Memory and Old Norse Mythology,’ in Minni and Muninn, eds Hermann, Mitchell and Agnes S. Arnórsdóttir, pp. 41–57. Chris Callow, ‘Landscape, Tradition and Power in a Region of Medieval Iceland: Dalir c.900–c.1262’ (PhD diss., University of Birmingham, 2001); and Callow, ‘Reconstructing the Past,’ Early Medieval Europe, 14 (2006), 297–324. Jürg Glauser, ‘Sagas of the Icelanders (Íslendinga sögur) and þættir as the Literary Representation of a New Social Space,’ trans. John Clifton-Everest, in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. Clunies Ross, pp. 203–220; Glauser, ‘The Speaking Bodies of Saga Texts,’ in Learning and Understanding in the Old Norse World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, eds Judy Quinn, Kate Heslop, and Tarrin Wills (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 13–26.

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between constructing the past and identity creation.100 Aspects of collective memory have also been discussed by Preben Meulengracht Sørensen in relation to social institutions.101 Collectively these studies indicate that the Old Norse culture of the Middle Ages was a culture given to memorialization.102 Importantly, the textual artefacts of this culture are themselves the product of transition: they occupy a position between orality and literacy and, as such, are products of the negotiation between Christian and native learning as well as foreign and more local traditions. That being said, these texts suggest that at the time of their composition, “memory was a mental and cultural resource of major importance.”103 In its totality, Old Norse–Icelandic literature comprises a repository of cultural memories and functions as the literary memory of the Icelanders. These texts are both memory and have a memory of their own. Broadly speaking, the sources used in this book capture two different forms of memory. The first of these relates to issues of memory storage and efforts to preserve in writing memories that would otherwise be lost to the vagaries of time. These memories conform to Halbwachs’s idea of ‘lived memory’; they are original and experiential. They are also finite, however; they wax and wane only to fade forever once those who participated in the ‘original experience’ have passed away or moved on. The original ‘storehouse’ of memory is an imperfect archive that diminishes over time. It is, to use Rigney’s analogy, “a leaky 100 Judith Jesch, ‘Myth and Cultural Memory in the Viking Diaspora,’ Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 4 (2008), 221–226; Jesse L. Byock, ‘Social Memory and the Sagas: The Case of Egils saga,’ Scandinavian Studies 76, 3 (2004), 299–316; Byock, ‘History and the Sagas,’ pp. 43–59; Byock, ‘Modern Nationalism and the Medieval Sagas,’ in Northern Antiquity: The Post-Medieval Reception of Edda and Saga, ed. Andrew Wawn (Enfield Lock, 1994), pp. 163–187; Else Mundal, ‘Memory of the Past and Old Norse Identity,’ in The Making of Memory in the Middle Ages, ed. Lucie Doležalová (Leiden, 2010), pp. 463–472; and Mundal, ‘Íslendingabók: The Creation of an Icelandic Christian Identity,’ in Historical Narratives and Christian Identity on a European Periphery: Early History Writing in Northern, East-Central, and Eastern Europe (c.1070–1200), ed. Idlar H. Garipzanov (Turnhout, 2011), pp. 111–121. 101 Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Historical Reality and Literary Form,’ in Viking Revaluations, eds Faulkes and Perkins, pp. 172–181; and Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Social Institutions and Belief Systems of Medieval Iceland (c.870–1400) and their Relations to Literary Production,’ trans. Margaret Clunies Ross, in Old Icelandic Literature and Society, ed. ­Clunies Ross, pp. 8–29. 102 Glauser, ‘Foreword,’ p. x, remarks that there is “barely a text in the whole body of Old Norse–Icelandic literature which does not in one way or another deal with memory.” 103 Hermann, ‘Key Aspects of Memory,’ p. 14.

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bucket which slowly runs dry.”104 Writing, however, has the capacity to preserve memories beyond the limits of ‘lived memory.’ This belief is expressed in two twelfth-century Norwegian histories. In the prologue to his Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium, Theodoricus monachus acknowledges man’s imperfect capacity for memory storage and reveals that he has taken it upon himself “to record for posterity these relics of our forefathers, few though they are.”105 His reason for committing these “relics” to writing is a matter of prestige “because almost no people is so rude and uncivilized that it has not passed on some monuments of its predecessors to later generations.”106 The preservation of the past in writing not only guaranteed the onward transmission of memories about that past, it was characteristic of a ‘civilized’ people. A related concern to that of verisimilitude is the preservation of an accurate rendering of the past. The desire for accuracy necessitated the citation of authoritative sources. When Theodoricus set out to write his faithful account of “[a] few details concerning the ancient history of the Norwegian kings,” his informants were “the people among whom in particular the remembrance of these matters is believed to thrive” – the Icelanders.107 He does, however, concede that, as he “recorded things not seen but heard,” “the degree of pure truth” in his own history was contingent on the memory of his informants.108 For the anonymous author of the Historia Norwegie, the most accurate account of the past is that preserved by his seniors; as such, he writes, “I have incorporated on my own account nothing new or unheard of from earlier ages, but have followed the statements of my elders in every respect.”109 Rather than seeing himself as a passive recorder of events, the author believes he has a valid, active contribution to make. Mindful of the limitations of memory, he includes additional details of the history of events in his own time, ­information 104 105 106 107

Rigney, ‘Plenitude,’ p. 12. ha, p. 1. ha, p. 1. ha, p. 1. The accounts of Theodoricus and Saxo Grammaticus reveal that medieval Icelanders were seen as the historical authorities of their day, suggesting that their own works were endowed with a certain authoritative status by using these individuals as informants. Saxo assures his reader of his desire to give fidelem vetustatis notitiam in his Gesta Danorum, revealing that he studied the poems of the ancient Danes and consulted the works of the “men of Thule” who “account it a delight to learn and to consign to remembrance the history of all nations.” Saxo Grammaticus, The Nine Books of the Danish History of Saxo Grammaticus, trans. Oliver Elton (London, 1905), vol. I, pp. 80, 81. 108 ha, p. 2. 109 hn, p. 53.

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he deems “worth remembering [...] since I have observed that many men’s splendid feats, together with their performers, sink daily into oblivion among our contemporaries owing to the shortage of written records.”110 Not only did writing afford an opportunity to store memories for posterity, it provided later authors or revisers with the ability to add to those memories, preserving as comprehensive an account of the past as possible. These ‘full’ accounts were drawn from a range of different types of knowledge: a familiarity with ancient lore, the wisdom of authorities, oral memory and the authors’ ‘lived memory.’ The second form of memory preserved by the sources used in this study is cultural memory. This form of memory, in Assmann’s words, comprises “the store of knowledge from which a group derives an awareness of its unity and peculiarity.”111 It is sustained by cultural practices, in particular rituals and ceremonies. Just as writing guarantees the preservation of the ‘original storehouse,’ it also provides societies with the capacity to store and archive their memories, creating a visible public memory.112 It enhances the status of institutions. It emphasizes the position of certain texts through a process of ‘canonization’ in which certain texts are accorded pre-eminence, copied, circulated and interpreted with greater frequency, a process that fixes the form and content of the text.113 Narrative is a natural vehicle for the transmission of cultural memory. It connects a sequence of otherwise individual and isolated events together. It places the ‘figures of memory’ within a coherent framework, organizing memories around fixed points, fostering a sense of identity.114 These narratives act as templates, which assign meaning to the group’s past and relevance to the group’s present and future. In this way, narratives capture the dynamism of cultural memory: as the ‘we’ changes, so too does the past. Cultural memory, so defined, is an integral component of all the sources used in this study. In the case of the historically problematic Íslendingasögur, Glauser considers these narratives to enshrine four elements of Assmann’s definitional concepts of cultural memory: ‘forming traditions,’ ‘relationships to the past,’ ‘written culture’ and ‘formation of identity.’115 Vésteinn Ólason 110 hn, p. 53. 111 Assmann, ‘Collective Memory,’ p. 130. 112 Jan Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Stanford, 2006). pp. 38–40, 81–100. 113 Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, pp. 63–80 (esp. pp. 64–65). 114 Assmann, Moses, p. 15. 115 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, p. 301; Glauser, ‘Sagas of Icelanders,’ p. 210. Pernille Hermann, ‘Concepts of Memory and Approaches to the Past in Medieval Icelandic Literature’, Scandinavian Studies, 81, 3 (2009), p. 294, argues that these four elements are also present in the Snorra Edda.

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treats these works as elements in a ‘dialogue,’ located in the memory and ideas of the thirteenth century, conducted with and about the past.116 Described as ‘totemic artefacts’ by Durrenberger, the Íslendingasögur provided early Icelandic society with a classification system that organized and assimilated all experience into a cohesive unit and within which individuals and events could be ordered and located.117 Although temporally removed from the events they describe, the Íslendingasögur, “with their deep social, historical, and oral roots [...] employ rather than invent a remembered past”.118 Their intended audiences’ knowledge of these narratives’ protagonists, events and locations imposed limits on the degree to which social memory could exaggerate matters.119 Their actual sequence of events could be distorted, but the complete fabrication of events is unlikely. This is not to suggest that processes of forgetting or selection were not involved in the construction of these narratives. Some settlers or families were elevated and others disregarded; some events were recalled and others sidelined or forgotten. Early Icelandic authors demonstrated a pragmatic open-mindedness about the way memories of the past might be preserved. The desire to preserve as full and accurate an account of the past as possible could co-exist with the assignment of particular meanings to those experiences. Different forms of memory could be combined within the one text. Íslendingabók is of particular significance to the present study. Composed by Ari inn fróði (the learned) Þorgilsson, sometime between 1122 and 1133, this brief, vernacular account is the earliest history of Iceland. The memories Íslendingabók preserves and the past it constructs are especially important for an analysis of the early relationship between Iceland and Norway. Ari’s account is essentially “a narrative of how a reality came into existence”.120 Memories of the island’s colonization, the first laws and assemblies, the foundation of the Alþingi, change of faith and other institutional developments, comprise what Anthony D. Smith has called a mythomoteur or myth-symbol-memory complex.121 These events made up some of the memoranda preserved by Ari. 116 Vésteinn Ólason, Dialogues. 117 E. Paul Durrenberger, ‘The Icelandic Family Sagas as Totemic Artefacts,’ in Social Approaches to Viking Studies, ed. Ross Samson (Glasgow, 1991), p. 15. 118 Byock, ‘Social Memory,’ p. 299. 119 Byock, ‘Social Memory,’ pp. 300–301. 120 Pernille Hermann, ‘Íslendingabók and History,’ in Reflections on Old Norse Myths, eds Pernille Hermann, Jens Peter Schjødt and Rasmus Tranum Kristensen (Turnhout, 2007), p. 18. 121 Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford, 1986), pp. 57–68. For the Old Norse context see Mundal, ‘Memory of the Past,’ pp. 463–472.

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Ari composed two versions of Íslendingabók. His first text was revised in accordance with the recommendations and knowledge of three clerics.122 Only this second amended text has survived. Ari’s account is deeply indebted to the testimony of witnesses, many of whom were related to him. This testimony connects Ari’s work to ‘lived memory’ (Halbwachs) and ‘communicative memory’ (Assmann). The second text of Íslendingabók was the product of oral tradition (Ari’s informants’ memories of events), individual memory (Ari’s own memory) and communal memory (the three ecclesiastics), neatly demonstrating the symbiosis between the oral and the written as well as the connection between an audience and the disseminators of collective or social memory. The creation of the manuscript blended oral and written memory together, capturing oral traditions within a textual framework, which could then be “circulated among those responsible for collective oral memory” and diffused to a wider non-literate audience.123 Oral modes of communication and dissemination supplemented their literate counterparts.124 Íslendingabók also reveals the desire to preserve as full an account of the past as possible for posterity. In his prologue, Ari stresses that his second account of events includes information which had become better known to him since he had composed his initial text.125 Ari was aware that his own memory extended only so far; beyond that point there was a gap in his knowledge of events. This gap could, however, be filled by the knowledge of others.126 Ari’s 122 íf i, p. 3. 123 Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton, 1994), p. 11, gives the Miracula S. Maximini of Letaldus as his example but Íslendingabók is equally appropriate. 124 Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Princeton nj, 1983), p. 3; D.H. Green, ‘Orality and Reading: The State of Research in Medieval Studies,’ Speculum, 65, 2 (1990), 267–280. McKitterick, History and Memory, p. 173, writes: “Orality and literacy are not mutually exclusive, nor is an oral culture a preliminary stage before the triumph of literacy.” She is particularly critical of Michael Richter, who places ‘oral’ (secular) culture against ‘literate’ (clerical) culture in The Formation of the Medieval West: Studies in the Oral Culture of the Barbarians (Dublin, 1994). 125 íf i, p. 3. 126 This particular scenario plays out in Ari’s discussion of a number of named lawspeakers. Although able to name a number of these individuals himself, Ari openly acknowledges that some holders of this office lay outside the limits of his own recollections. His account reveals that the names of the lawspeakers from “váru fyrir várt minni” (earlier than my memory extends) are provided by Markús Skeggjason, whose own memories were supplemented by those of his brother, Þórarinn and his father, Skeggi. Skeggi’s recollections, meanwhile, are fleshed out by the information given by “fleiri spakir menn” (many

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skill documenting the history of early Iceland in as full and as accurate a way as possible is praised in the thirteenth century by the author of H ­ eimskringla, who writes that Ari “was knowledgeable about olden times both here and abroad [...] eager to learn and of good memory.”127 This statement is important for the present investigation, for it serves as near-contemporary testimony of Ari’s knowledge and memory of events that had taken place outside Iceland, including Norway. If Ari’s use of informants and witness testimony corresponds with Halbwachs’s conception of ‘lived memory,’ Íslendingabók is also an artefact of ‘cultural memory.’ It is not only the island’s earliest history: it is the earliest foundation narrative, describing the migration, settlement and origins of Icelandic society. Over time, the ‘figures of memory’ established by Ari became intrinsically linked to and fused with other ideologically-motivated concerns about the settlement and its significance. What is particularly striking about early Icelandic history writing, whether it was in the form of national histories like Íslendingabók and the landnámabækur or the fully formed narratives of the Íslendingasögur, is how the basic facts described by Ari remained uncontested. The latter texts, written in the form of dynastic chronicles, stretch across two poles: the landnámsöld and the conversion to Christianity, c.999–1000 a.d. The genealogies in these texts serve two functions: (1) to locate the individual within his own family, including his Norwegian ancestors, and (2) to place the individual’s actions within a social framework. This framework was comprised of distinct yet interconnected social structures – family, the relationship between a goði and his þingmenn, feud, law and its institutions – and it defined early Icelandic society. Their representation in the Íslendingasögur may reveal their authors’ perceptions of these elements, but these authors reflect a consistent social memory in their desire to describe early Icelandic history in their own Icelandic terms, ignoring the legendary and royal dynastic chronicles that buttressed “standard European historical memories.”128 According to this reckoning, Icelandic historical memories were not standardized in a European context; they were standardized through the generation of the remarkably consistent descriptions of island society, its origins and social structures across Íslendingabók, the landnámabækur and the saga corpus. All of the narrative sources gave meaning to the present through their articulation of the past and created a common memory of the past for the wise men) as well as information provided by his grandfather, Bjarni enn spaki, who remembered seven lawspeakers. íf i, p. 22. 127 íf xxvi, p. 7. 128 Fentress and Wickham, Social Memory, p. 172.

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Icelanders. The social component of this memory may be extended further: through the oral presentation of these works to an audience, the Icelandic past and the first settlers were commemorated in a performative context.129 This type of public commemoration speaks to Brian Stock’s conceptualization of the ‘textual community.’ The intended audience, recipients of memories that were discourses about identity and power, legitimized them by accepting them as their own. The present book examines a series of texts that, with few notable exceptions, were principally composed during the thirteenth century. These texts, which are largely in the form of narratives, may be characterized as ‘formative texts.’ This type of text, according to Assmann, aids in self-definition and identity creation.130 They transmit identity affirming and re-affirming information. While composed at some remove from the events they purport to describe, these narratives are located in tradition. As such, they reveal something of early Icelandic history but, more importantly, they are suggestive of how the Icelanders wanted to remember their history. It is not within the purview of this study to identify the categorical historical ‘truths’ of these texts, but rather to interpret them as documents of cultural memory. In this way, the rise, fall, promotion and marginalization of certain stories at the expense of others takes on particular significance. These texts are examined in order to understand how, through memories of their past and narrative positioning – the dynamics of remembering – the Icelanders negotiated and renegotiated their relationship with their ancestral homeland.

Alternative Perspectives

The Memory of the Past as Cultural Capital One of the objectives of this book is to situate the sources within the context of a broader dialogue that took place between Iceland and Norway. The presentcentred motivations behind the inclusion of references to the earlier relationship between the two countries are of particular importance, especially when 129 Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 4–5, argues that social memory is found in performativity. The public aspect of storytelling in medieval Iceland is well attested to with the description of a wedding at Reykhólar in 1119 in Þorgils saga ok Hafliða an oft-cited example. The seminal study on this passage is that undertaken by Peter Foote, ‘Sagnaskemtan: Rekjahólar 1119,’ Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 14 (1955–56), 226–239. 130 Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory, p. 38.

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they are interpreted as part of an active strategy pursued by medieval Icelandic authors. This premise benefits from a number of studies of Snorri Sturluson undertaken in the past decade, notably those by Kevin J. Wanner and Torfi H. Tulinius, which have employed a Bourdieuan framework in their respective attempts to explain the strategy (or strategies) motivating Snorri’s actions. In Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia, Wanner frames the place and function of skaldic poetry and its most eminent practitioner, Snorri, within the parameters of the thirteenthcentury Iceland–Norway relationship. In particular, he locates the genesis of Snorri’s Edda within this relationship and the changing tastes of the Norwegian court. Wanner believes that Snorri was prompted to compose the Edda after his first visit to the Norwegian court and exposure to the possible crisis facing skaldic verse as it was forced to compete with chivalric genres. He views the Edda as a strategic composition fundamentally concerned with safeguarding Iceland’s most valuable cultural export to Norway: skaldic poetry. According to this premise, Snorri’s motivations for preserving this ars poetica was ultimately self-interest: the preservation of this art form and the benefits that would accrue to its practitioners – economic, political and social – would enhance Snorri’s own position, both in Iceland and Norway. This, Wanner argues, allows Snorri to transform cultural capital – his poetic skills – into economic and symbolic capital – the privileges and rewards he receives from practicing these skills. Wanner is primarily concerned with Snorri’s activities abroad; Torfi Tulinius is more interested in Snorri’s exploits at home. Snorri’s accumulation of economic, cultural and social capital underpinned his virðing or respect. This quality influences the relationships and interactions Snorri has with others. Through an analysis of the social fields within which Snorri and his Icelandic competitors operated, Tulinius unpicks the different forms of interaction and relationships that were available to an Icelandic chieftain in the thirteenth century.131 It is, however, his conceptualization of Egils saga as a literary tool that is of special interest. Working from a number of assumptions – namely that the Íslendingasögur were written compositions as opposed to the productions of oral tradition; that Egils saga was one of the earliest of these c­ ompositions; and 131 Torfi H. Tulinius, ‘Virðing í flóknu samfélagi. Getur félagsfræði Pierre Bourdieu skýrt hlutverk og eðli virðingar í íslensku miðaldasamfélagi?’, in Sæmdarmenn. Um heiður á þjóðveldisöld, ed. Helgi Þorláksson (Reykjavik, 2001), pp. 57–89; Torfi H. Tulinius, ‘Pierre Bourdieu and Snorri Sturluson: Chieftains, Sociology and the Development of Literature in Medieval Iceland,’ in Snorres Edda i europeisk og islandsk kultur, ed. Jon Gunnar Jørgensen (Reykholt, 2009), pp. 47–71.

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that Snorri Sturluson was the author of Egils saga – Tulinius interprets this narrative within the sociological and literary contexts of its genesis. Just as Wanner argues that the origins of the Edda are to be found in the changing tastes of the Norwegian court, Tulinius contends that Egils saga draws on twelfthcentury courtly romances in its creation of a protagonist that fulfills both the role of a chevalier whilst also being a skald. This latter function enabled skaldic verse to be embedded in the narrative, preserving Icelandic ‘cultural capital’ within a framework that dovetailed with the current literary fashion. Like the Edda, Egils saga was a meaningfully constructed cultural and social tool used by Icelanders in their relationship with Norway. Although both Wanner and Tulinius make a number of assumptions, their arguments function within the limits of possibility. By perceiving the products of Icelandic literary endeavour – whether skaldic verse or the Íslendingasögur – as strategies or documents of cultural utility, this implies not only that these works were culturally meaningful, but that they were also politically significant tools. This political significance is enhanced if we then place these works within the context of a broader dialogue that took place between Iceland and Norway and read them as responses to the interaction that took place between the two countries. Accordingly, medieval Icelandic literature can be interpreted as one side of an on-going dialogue conducted formally and informally between Iceland and Norway across different literary genres and centuries. Norway, it should be stressed, was not voiceless in this dialogue. Norwegian comments on Iceland, or perceived Norwegian opinion on Iceland, were addressed by medieval Icelandic authors. One illustrative example is that of the oft-quoted epilogue to a no longer extant version of Landnámabók, which attributes Icelandic historical interest, in this instance at least, to the islanders’ desire to refute slurs and speculation about their precise origins.132 This then allows the national histories of both countries to be framed within a contemporary and near-contemporary political context. Memory Specialists and Memorability The perception of the sources as accretions of cultural capital, both within Iceland and within the context of the island’s relationship with Norway, complements this book’s second line of enquiry: the interrelated issues of memory specialists and memorability. In his analysis of memory, Assmann discriminates between ‘communicative memory’ and ‘cultural memory.’ Cultural memory endures simply because it is preserved by mechanisms, such as writing, 132 íf i, p. 336.

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that fix it and ensure its longevity beyond those who bear it. The preservation and transfer of cultural memory is the remit of particular memory specialists.133 These individuals function as ‘socializing agents’ and the ‘privileged interpreters’ of the past.134 They do not merely consciously select what is to be remembered, they interpret, package and assign meanings to the memories they present. As such, these individuals generate new constructions of the past. They act as the gatekeepers, not only of the past itself, but to control over that past. Their textual output is not the product of society at large, rather they are constructed by the learned and social elite within that society; consequently there is “nothing either traditional or democratic about them”.135 Cultural memory then, with its restricted participation and generation of selective constructions of the past, is characterized by elitism.136 It operates according to principles of exclusion rather than inclusion. Its practitioners, in Bourdieuan terms, gain ‘symbolic capital’ from their ownership of the means of generating ‘cultural capital.’ If a monopoly on the construction, production and dissemination of cultural memory exists, it lies in the hands of those in power. The activity of the memory specialist places him in a position of objective power. That power was based on the relationship between access to the past, on the one hand, and the transmission of that past, on the other. Access to the past and control over that access not only meant control over which memories were selected and preserved, it also meant control over the transmission of those memories and, by extension, control over early medieval Iceland’s information technology.137 Not only did memory specialists construct the past in a certain way, but they also attempted to convert their audience to their vision of that past. In this respect, these individuals were located at the centre of a nexus between early schools, political centres and the well-heeled segments of society. These relationships underpinned the power of the aristocratic elite. It was this element of society that was ultimately responsible for the generation of Icelandic literary endeavour and, by extension, for the maintenance of a particular c­ onstruction of the

133 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, p. 54. 134 Eric Langenbacher, ‘Collective Memory as a Factor in Political Culture and International Relations,’ in Power and the Past: Collective Memory and International Relations, eds Eric Langenbacher and Yossi Shain (Washington dc, 2010), p. 31. 135 Carruthers, review of Jan Assmann, p. 281. 136 Assmann, ‘Communicative and Cultural Memory,’ p. 116. 137 See Johnston, Literacy and Identity, p. 25, for a similar statement in respect of medieval Ireland.

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early Icelandic past.138 Within that version of the past, Norway was assigned a particular place. These interlocking affiliations are best represented by those medieval Icelandic authors that are associated with some of the named works used in this book. Ari Þorgilsson, Snorri Sturluson and his nephew, Sturla Þórðarson, were members of some of the most powerful and well-connected families of their day. These men were all active participants in native and Norwegian historiography, but their involvement in Icelandic affairs was not restricted to their literary pursuits. Significantly, all were well-travelled, well-educated members of Iceland’s chieftain class. They had not only been immersed in native tradition but had also been exposed to a learned education and textual culture. These men, qualified by virtue of their historical interest and sensibilities, learning and social positions, should be considered memory specialists. Just as history is by nature partial, so too are its practitioners. Ari, Snorri and Sturla were not only historians or lawmen, they were chieftains and politicians who sought to protect and preserve their interests and those of their families and patrons. Their social activities went far beyond recording the past but by recording the past, these individuals generated “carefully constructed and ideologically sophisticated texts.”139 This use of the past within specific contexts conforms to Assmann’s conceptualization of mythomotorics and is typified by “an alliance between rule and memory.”140 By constructing the past in a specific way, such as referring to noble ancestors, memory specialists could legitimize the political positions of the present and justify the political actions of the future.141 Collectively then, the Icelandic memory specialists formed “a social fraction that within its own land was politically, economically and socially dominant.”142 Their access to education, to Norway and, in some cases, to the Norwegian king, distinguished them from the island’s general population even further. We must be aware that these individuals’ perceptions of Norway and the place of Norway in the early Icelandic past may not be representative of all Icelanders. The Icelandic memory specialists were members of a narrow elite in every respect. The political and economic future of the island, a future that 138 For a discussion of medieval Irish society that is couched in similar terms, see Johnston, Literacy and Identity, pp. 23–26. 139 Geary, Phantoms, p. 4. 140 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, p. 70. 141 Michael Riber Jørgensen, ‘Constructing History: The Use of the Past as a Model for the Present in the Icelandic Sagas,’ Collegium Medievale, 23 (2010), p. 21; Axel Kristinsson, ‘Lords and Literature: The Icelandic Sagas as Political and Social Instruments,’ Scandinavian Journal of History 28, 1 (2003), 1–17. 142 Wanner, Snorri Sturluson, p. 57.

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was in large part dictated by the Norwegian king, was a matter of the utmost importance for these men. The very nature of the elite status of Ari, Snorri and Sturla ensured that they were in a privileged position to document the political and historical relationship between Iceland and Norway, but their presentation of this subject had to maintain a particular balance: on the one hand, sensitivity to the demands and expectations of the Norwegian king, while, on the other hand, an awareness of their own domestic interests and ambitions within Iceland itself. As a result, their texts are highly political documents of cultural utility, designed to be used as tools in the complex social and political world of their creation. Matters are problematized further when we consider the precise roles people such as Ari, Snorri and Sturla played in the construction of the works with which they are associated. By this I mean that even in those cases where we can associate a specific work with a named individual, it is still difficult to identify with precision what parts of those works they undertook themselves and which they outsourced to scribes working under their direction.143 A related issue concerns the present state of the documentary evidence, none of which is preserved in its original version. The constructions of the past in these texts were adapted and repurposed in different contexts over time. All are, to varying degrees, the products of multiple authorship and multiple intelligences. How consciously did the individuals involved in the creation of the text interact with their material? Even if we accept that a unifying directing intelligence lay behind these compositions, our sources reveal a range of different perceptions of the past. Furthermore, did the intended recipients of these texts consciously accept those accounts of the past and embrace them as their own? It is, therefore, simply impossible to read the place of Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian king in the sources as amounting to anything approximating a uniform or single Icelandic point of view, even if that point of view was the creation of a narrow literate elite. Margaret Clunies Ross has written that the production of a narrative is contingent on memory: [...] because textual composition can never be absolutely contemporaneous with the events or persons that inspire its creation. These things must be consciously remembered and mentally reworked by the author or compiler, either before composition can begin or simultaneously with it.144 143 Arnved Nedkvitne, The Social Consequences of Literacy in Medieval Scandinavia (Turnhout, 2004), p. 119. 144 Clunies Ross, ‘Authentication,’ pp. 60–61.

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This statement not only establishes memory as the basis for any account, it also points to the creative activity of the narrator of that tale, irrespective of the media in which that account is preserved. For Ann Rigney, the goal of a successful narrative is to “produce meaningful statements about experience by reducing and selecting from all the information that is virtually available.”145 Like Clunies Ross, Rigney highlights the active role played by an author in the production of a narrative. Before a narrative is generated, information is compiled, collated and selected for presentation. This process indicates that those details deemed suitable for onward transmission are weighted according to a value index. The denomination ascribed to these details or memoranda may be author-, patron- or audience-assigned. While the inclusion of certain details, such as references to places, individuals and events, underpins the verisimilitude and authenticity of an account, a narrator also has to construct an intelligible and unified story from these elements as opposed to being diverted along a series of unrelated tangents. The principles governing the selection of memoranda is connected, on the one hand, to the distillation of information into a linear, univocal account, and the desire to generate a meaningful, engaging and, by default, memorable story, on the other. To be recorded, events had to be memorable. An author’s “raw material had to be striking events that merited recording and, to this extent [...] routine and mundane incidents of everyday existence” often fall outside their purview.146 This statement, made by R. George Thomas in his introduction to Sturlunga saga, could be read as indicating that those events deemed suitable for inclusion are restricted to those considered unusual or exceptional in some way. The inclusion of other details, however, might indicate that certain events were included simply because they related to a specific area, family or feud that was integral to the overarching story the author was trying to tell. The narrative sources used by this book commingle the extraordinary with the ordinary and any attempt to tease one out from the other requires a particularly close reading. This also underlines the importance of using a wide source base, for it is only by reading sources against each other that a more complete picture of medieval Iceland can be generated. 145 Ann Rigney, Imperfect Histories: The Elusive Past and the Legacy of Romantic Historicism (Ithaca ny and London, 2001), p. 65. Key to narrativism as a theoretical approach within history is that historical events do not naturally take the form of stories. Louis O. Mink, ‘Narrative Form as a Cognitive Instrument,’ in The Writing of History: Literary Form and Historical Understanding, eds Robert H. Canary and Henry Kozicki (Madison wi, 1978), p. 147: “There can in fact be no untold stories at all, just as there can be no unknown knowledge.” 146 R.G. Thomas, ‘Introduction,’ in Sturlunga saga, trans. Julia H. McGrew and R.G. Thomas (New York, 1970), vol. 1, p. 25.

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Narrating, then, should not be seen as synonymous with “telling things as they really were”; rather narrating constructs and amalgamates otherwise disparate details into a coherent whole that is indebted to pre-existing models and attitudes.147 The study of narrativity and the related issue of memorability has drawn upon discourse within the literary criticism of the 1970s and the work of Hayden White in particular. White argued that isolated incidents do not assume the shape of a coherent account; rather events are arranged by their recorder who generates a logical and comprehensible narrative from these disparate elements. Narrative patterns and structures are therefore imposed on events by whomsoever is narrating those events. White’s assessment of the “value of narrativity in the representation of reality” has prompted a series of inquiries into the nature of narrative and, in particular, how it constructs meaningful statements about the past. These inquiries are reflective of a broader theoretical shift away from the narrative product to the narrative processes that generate such products. Verbal art and narrative skill are key to unpicking memorability. Ann Rigney examines how narrativization draws sparse facts into a creative matrix of history and fiction combined. It becomes a mnemonic tool, not just an interpretative one, endowing the dry facts with an aesthetic structure and power, which lodges them enduringly in the mind.148 The second aspect of memorability concerns the value or worth it places on certain things and not others. Remembering and forgetting are part of the same process of recollection.149 Some things were simply not worthy of being remembered, whereas others lent themselves more readily than others to the generation of an engaging and significant narrative. The construction of narratives around certain individuals and events enabled these to be placed at the core of a web of contemporary culturally meaningful information. Based on this premise, the place of memorability in narratives of cultural memory deserves particular attention. In the case of medieval Icelandic narratives, this issue is, I contend, connected to those individuals responsible for the preservation and transmission of cultural memory. Historiography, like other forms of writing, generates meaning. For historiography to be meaningful, it must construct statements that claim to be a satisfactory representation of the past. For these statements to ‘stick’ and enjoy 147 Matthew Innes, ‘Introduction: Using the Past, Interpreting the Present, Influencing the Future,’ in Uses of the Past, eds Hen and Innes, p. 5. 148 Ann Rigney, ‘The Dynamics of Remembrance: Texts Between Monumentality and Morphing,’ in Cultural Memory Studies, eds Erll and Nünning, pp. 347, 348. 149 Rigney, ‘Plenitude,’ pp. 11–28.

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longevity, they must also be an effective interpretation of the past. Nancy Partner has discriminated between representations that are ‘true to actuality’ and those that are ‘true to meaning.’150 Representations that are ‘true to actuality’ ground their authority on historical evidence and historical sources. These accounts of the past contain only that information that is known of the past. Representations that are ‘true to meaning,’ by contrast, are fundamentally grounded in the skill and learning of their recorder and the viability of his interpretations of the past. Without the verbal art of men like Ari, Snorri, Sturla and Haukr – individuals who all had the capacity to make ‘stories stick’ and generated representations of the past that were ‘true to meaning’ – there may have been little to remember about the life of X other than he settled at Y. But by deliberately intervening in the historical traditions surrounding key moments in early Icelandic history – and the role of Norway in those moments – to guarantee that certain individuals and their deeds would not be forgotten, a sustained interest was generated in these individuals, ensuring they would not be lost to the vagaries of memory and consigned to oblivion. This prompts consideration of the manner in which cultural memory is articulated around paradigms of exemplarity, an issue that is discussed in relation to the settlement in Chapter 2. Such an approach entails a move away from issues of validity and origins and a corresponding shift towards the exemplary function and value-in-the-present of certain memories over others.151 The sources used in this study indicate that the place of Norway in the early Icelandic past was important. Despite this importance, the role of the ancestral homeland in those accounts documenting the foundation and consolidation of a new society overseas was one that was subject to constant negotiation and renegotiation. Norway, the Norwegian king and suitably honourable Norwegian origins were all useful tools in the armoury of medieval Icelandic memory specialists. In her discussion of early Icelandic historiography, Diana Whaley argues that “perhaps the single most important ‘use’ of historical writing [...] was to foster national self-definition, at least among those of perceived social and economic consequence.”152 When Shami Ghosh quotes that statement in the conclusion to his compelling study of the konungasögur, he omits the final ten qualifying words, which is unfortunate.153 Historical writing was indeed used to generate solidarity and an Icelandic sense of self, but this was, if not 150 Nancy Partner, ‘Historicity in an Age of Reality-Fictions,’ in A New Philosophy of History, eds F.R. Ankersmit and Hans Kellner (London, 1995), pp. 21–39. 151 Rigney, ‘Portable Monuments’, p. 381. 152 Whaley, ‘A Useful Past,’ p. 193. 153 Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas, p. 177.

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restricted to, of most use to those well-heeled, well-connected elements of medieval Icelandic society, the very echelons from which its memory specialists were drawn. Within the context of the present study, Whaley’s statement has a wider application: it suggests that those accounts of the Icelandic past and the Norwegian presence they incorporate were seen as a form of cultural capital which issued in a caste of people enjoying symbolic capital. Accordingly, their authors, patrons and audiences perceived these accounts to have a value in Icelandic society; for their compilers, such as Snorri, Sturla and Haukr, they also had a currency in Norway. They could be traded for material benefits and political value. It is apparent that the place of Norway in those accounts enjoyed a currency of its own. This was, after all, the ancestral homeland of the islanders, but it was also the past of the colonist, a past that the Icelanders, through their preservation and transmission of the Norwegian past, sought to preserve. The desire, on the one hand, to mark one’s self out from, and, on the other, to identify with, are each held in tension with the other in the Icelandic accounts of the past. This suggests that memories of the ‘shared’ Norwegian past and the place of Norway in early Icelandic history are much more complex and draw upon a range of different topographies of memory, including notions of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery,’ in their articulation. Constructions of the past were used to legitimize contemporary social structures; to this end, aspects of the past that did not conform or contribute to the creation of a culturally meaningful explanation of ‘why things are the way they are’ were silenced or written out of the historical record. Carefully constructed accounts of the past, therefore, played an important role in the historical consciousness of twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iceland. They enabled the islanders to embrace the more desirable aspects of that past and articulate memories of the Iceland–Norway relationship safely within the framework of a text. But while the contemporary political context can account for some of the references to this relationship and the terms in which they are couched, these texts do not offer a comprehensive explanation for why the Icelanders perceived Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian king the way they did. The extant sources show that Norway’s ‘value’ in Iceland went beyond accounting for the development of social and political structures. Rather, they indicate that Norway was used as an index against which Iceland and the Icelanders were repeatedly measured. From this perspective, the memory specialists occupied an uneasy and, it must be said, unusual position: not only did they generate accounts of the past that were constructed in a specific way to show the islanders (or their own families and patrons) in the best possible light, they also incorporated episodes within their narratives that

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describe interpersonal interaction between Icelanders and Norway in Iceland and in Norway. In their accounts of Norwegians in Iceland, the often-crude stereotypes used to characterize Norwegians serve to highlight the good qualities of the Icelanders. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. More interesting is the way in which their accounts of upwardly mobile Icelanders at the Norwegian kings’ court, conform, as we shall see, to a pre-ordained plot in which the gauche, naïve visitor upstages his courtly, Norwegian counterparts. This additional layer of complexity conforms, perhaps, to the ‘cultural cringe’ – the assumption that the local culture (Iceland) is inferior to that of the cultural centre (Norway). The memory specialists ensure that the Icelander abroad overcomes the social obstacles levelled against him to become successful in Norwegian society. The index against which that success is measured is a Norwegian one: the cultural centre that possessed a courtly culture and geographical proximity to Rome and European intellectual centres. Although Margaret Clunies Ross gives passing consideration to this triumph over the ‘cultural cringe’, seeing it as a literary device that was “in large part a salve to Icelandic self-respect,”154 I suggest that it was more powerful than that. It offered an opportunity for the Icelandic voice in the on-going dialogue with Norway to be heard in such a way that allowed both an Icelandic sense of self and the concerns and anxieties about a relationship with a more powerful country to be expressed in a way that was ultimately beneficial to the islanders. The value index of that relationship was Norway; this was the standard against which Iceland was judged. Icelandic identity and self-perception were thus reckoned in a currency that was culturally Norwegian.

The Sources

The focus of this book is on how a discrete component of the past – the island’s early relationship with Norway – was made meaningful and relevant to Icelanders living in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the period in which the extant sources were written.155 These texts, describing the island’s 154 Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘From Iceland to Norway: Essential Rites of Passage for an Early Icelandic Skald,’ Alvíssmál, 9 (1999), 55–72, at p. 57. 155 Introductions to Old Norse–Icelandic literature and the sources for medieval history include Margaret Clunies Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse–Icelandic Saga (Cambridge, 2010); Sverrir Tómasson, ‘1. The Middle Ages: Old Icelandic Prose,’ trans. Gunnþórunn Guðmundsdóttir, in A History of Icelandic Literature, ed. Daisy Neijmann (Lincoln ne, 2006), pp. 64–173; Companion, ed. Rory McTurk; Heather O’Donoghue, Old

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settlement, the creation of its society and the interaction of its population with the Norwegian kings and their subjects, are based in various reflections on lived and oral memory. They are hugely important not only for their reconstruction and reshaping of the past, but for the canonical status they assumed in medieval Icelandic self-definition as well as later nation-building. With few exceptions, all of the surviving written evidence for a study of pre-twelfth century Iceland has survived in manuscripts from the thirteenth century and later. This means that nearly all the documentary sources for the early history of Iceland, since the island’s settlement in the late ninth century, are, for the most part, thirteenth-century texts.156 To complicate matters further, the majority of the extant sources, which vary in content and usefulness, are in narrative form. Establishing what they do not reveal is as important as establishing what the sources can and do reveal about the island’s memory of its relationship with its ancestral homeland between c.870 and c.1100. Recognizing that different types of sources have the capacity to unlock different aspects of this relationship in different ways, the present work draws on a wide range of sources. Individually they cannot answer all questions pertaining to this relationship, its form, how it was represented and how that representation changed over time, but collectively they can enhance our knowledge of this important bond. Once the limitations on the usefulness of each source is recognised, it is easier to utilize them to the best of their capacity. Since the nineteenth century, early Icelandic literature has been classified under five main headings: national histories and quasi-histories; the konungasögur (kings’ sagas); the Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders); the riddarasögur (knights’ sagas); and the fornaldarsögur (legendary sagas).157 The insular Norse–Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction (Oxford, 2004); Old Icelandic Literature, ed. Clunies Ross; Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–76; Byock, Medieval Iceland, pp. 14–50; Jónas Kristjánsson, Eddas and Sagas: Iceland’s Medieval Literature, trans. Peter Foote (Reykjavik, 1988); Old Norse–Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, eds Carol J. Clover and John Lindow (Ithaca ny and London, 1985); Stefán Einarsson, A History of Icelandic Literature (New York, 1957); Gabriel Turville-Petre, Origins of Icelandic Literature (Oxford, 1953). 156 Peter Foote, The Early Christian Laws of Iceland: Some Observations (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 1–24, has suggested that a portion of the early Icelandic laws contained in Grágás are pre-thirteenth century. 157 Sverrir Tómasson, ‘Old Icelandic Prose,’ p. 75. The application of a taxonomy such as ‘sagas of Icelanders,’ ‘kings’ sagas’ etc. has not been accepted by all scholars, while sub-genres of these saga types also exist. For further see Lars Lönnroth, ‘The Concept of Genre in Saga Literature,’ Scandinavian Studies, 47, 4 (1975), 419–426; Joseph Harris, ‘Genre in the Saga Literature: A Squib,’ Scandinavian Studies, 47, 4 (1975), 427–436; Theodore M. Andersson, ‘Splitting the Saga,’ Scandinavian Studies, 47, 4 (1975), 437–441. More recently Elizabeth

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national histories – Íslendingabók and the extant versions of Landnámabók – are the most important sources for establishing the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway in the period under investigation. These texts are supplemented by consideration of the three synoptic Norwegian national histories where relevant. The present work does not claim to study all of the Íslendingasögur or konungasögur, but rather uses a number of these narratives selectively, as in Chapter 5, or as supplementary and comparative material to the thematic discussions elsewhere. Narrative sources are central to this work; one normative work, commonly referred to as the Ólafslög and specific to Chapter 4, is treated within the investigative ambit of that chapter. The remainder of this introductory chapter will briefly consider the context for historical writing in Iceland and Norway before giving an overview of the age and content of the main sources for this work, together with some of the problems they pose. Historical Writing in Iceland and Norway It appears that some form of formal, written instruction was available within a century or so after the Christianization of Iceland.158 By the early twelfth century, two schools had been established, at Skálholt and Hólar. Precisely what sort of instruction was dispensed remains unclear, but the Benedictine monk and biographer of Óláfr Tryggvason, Gunnlaugr Leifsson (d. 1218/19), praised the education he acquired at Hólar.159 It is also likely that some type of education was also available at some of the farmsteads of the stórbændr (large farmers).160 Oral and written forms co-existed; each mode of transmission was also a medium of recording, and early written records were generally restricted to important dates and their events.161

158 159 160 161

Ashman Rowe, ‘Generic Hybrids: Norwegian ‘Family’ Sagas and Icelandic ‘Mythic-Heroic’ Sagas,’ Scandinavian Studies, 65, 4 (1993), 539–554, argues that saga categorization is useful. For sub-genres, see Melissa A. Berman, ‘The Political Sagas,’ Scandinavian Studies, 57, 2 (1985), 113–129; and Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘The Skald Sagas as a Genre: Definitions and Typical Features,’ in Skaldsagas. Text, Vocation, and Desire in the Icelandic Sagas of Poets, ed. Russell Poole (Berlin, New York, 2001), pp. 25–49. íf XV2, p. 42: “Þá váru flestir virðingamenn lærðir ok vígðir ok lærðir til presta þó at hǫfðingjar væri”. íf XV2, pp. 218–220. Hermann Pálsson, Oral Tradition and Saga Writing (Vienna,1999), p. 23. Sverre Bagge, ‘The Making of a Missionary King: The Medieval Accounts of Olaf Tryggvason and the Conversion of Norway,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology 105, 4 (2006), p. 502.

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The earliest known historical work by an Icelander was a brief Latin prose history of the Norwegian kings by a continentally-educated priest called Sæmundr Sigfússon (d. 1133). A reference in a twelfth-century poem, Nóregs konungatal, suggests that Sæmundr documented the lives of ten kings, beginning with Haraldr hárfagri.162 Sæmundr is believed to have composed his konunga ævi (kings’ lives) when he returned to Iceland from the continent but there is a lack of consensus in the Icelandic annals as to precisely when this was.163 Despite the discrepancies between the annals, which only amount to a couple of years, it is apparent that historical writing was introduced to Iceland in the late 1070s and that shortly thereafter the first historical work was produced, possibly in the 1080s. The Icelanders’ interest in the history of their ancestral homeland continued, and by the early twelfth century Ari Þorgilsson had also written about the Norwegian kings (in a text that does not survive). It is probable that the konunga ævi of Sæmundr and Ari were commissioned by the Oddaverjar and Haukdælir, families who desired their illustrious pedigrees to be communicated to a wider audience.164 A number of other works, including two lives of the missionary king Óláfr Tryggvason, were produced from the mid- to late-twelfth century. This appears to indicate that, for the Icelanders to begin the process of understanding and negotiating their relationship with Norway, they first had to immerse themselves in Norwegian history, a significant part of which they shared with their Norwegian cousins. This process provided them with the necessary tools with which they were able then to position themselves visà-vis their ancestral homeland and find their place in the world. A pivotal period in the documentation of Icelandic life after the settlement seems to have taken place between 1117 and 1133. During this period the laws were codified at Breiðabólstaður (1117–1118); the Homicide (1117–1118) and Christian Law Sections (c.1122–1333) were promulgated; and the history of the island and its society was documented (c.1122–1133). It seems likely that the original version of Landnámabók (which has not survived) appeared within this key period. By the mid-twelfth century, several different forms of writing had been actively pursued: laws (lǫg), genealogies (áttvísi), sacred or religious works (þýðingar helgar), together with historical traditions.165 The composition of 162 Flb ii, pp. 520–528, esp. p. 524. 163 ia, pp. 110, 251. 164 Sverrir Tómasson, ‘Old Icelandic Prose,’ p. 121. The Haukdælir also directed the writing of Hungrvaka and may have commissioned Íslendingabók. 165 fgt, p. 12: “á þessu landi, bæði lǫg ok áttvísi eða þýðingar helgar, eða svá þau in spakligu frœði, er Ari Þórgilsson hefir á bœkr sett af skynsamligu viti”.

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texts documenting the settlement and the island’s early history testifies to the readiness of the Icelanders to commit their past to writing, although they may have been prompted to do this for a variety of reasons. History-writing in Latin in Norway does not appear to have commenced before the mid-twelfth century, a century after Sæmundr’s history of the Norwegian kings. Vernacular historical writing began somewhat later: the earliest such text that has survived, Ágrip, was composed c.1190, more than five decades after its Icelandic equivalent, Íslendingabók. Those Norwegian histories that have survived are remarkable for their brevity, and it is the Icelandic authors of skaldic verse and the konungasögur that effectively document Norwegian history, both for the distant past and its contemporary kings. With few exceptions, then, the memories of the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway were documented by the Icelanders themselves. While this attests to the status of the medieval Icelanders as the historical authorities of their day, it also indicates that the extant twelfth- and thirteenthcentury accounts of Norwegian and Scandinavian history, especially those episodes describing events from the distant past, are highly coloured by an Icelandic perspective. This is an important consideration to bear in mind when reading the Norwegian sources and their treatment of the island’s settlement and its society. The Icelandic National Histories We are in the rare position of knowing both the author and decade of composition of Íslendingabók, the earliest Icelandic non-hagiographical extant vernacular historical work. It was composed by the priest and chieftain Ari Þorgilsson who, according to the author of Heimskringla, was the first man to write in Old Norse.166 Ari wrote two versions of his history between 1122 and 1133 of which only the second has survived, preserved in two seventeenth-­ century paper manuscripts.167 Documenting events from the time of the island’s settlement to the early twelfth century, the details of which are filled in by the later law-codes and saga narratives, Íslendingabók provides a chronological framework for the present work. The text opens with a succinct description of the landnám, thereafter shifting its interests in favour of institutional 166 íf xxvi, p. 5: “Ari prestr inn fróði Þorgilsson, Gellissonar, ritaði fyrstr manna hér á landi at norrœnu máli frœði, bæði forna ok nýja.” 167 These versions are known as am 113 a fol (B) and am 113 b fol (A) respectively, the latter being used for all textual editions. Both were copied by Jón Erlendsson in the seventeenth century from the same exemplar. For further, see Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ in íf i, pp. xliv–xlvii.

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and c­ onstitutional developments, resulting in the painstakingly constructed chronological accounts of the division of the country into Quarters, the bringing of the law to Iceland, the establishment of the Alþingi, the change of faith, Icelandic colonization overseas, the writing down of the native laws and the expansion of the authority of the Icelandic Church. The record comes to an end in the year 1118, with the death of Bishop Gizurr.168 Ari’s brief history is problematic for several reasons. The first issue concerns the involvement of three learned men in the composition of Ari’s text: Sæmundr Sigfússon, Bishop Þorlákr Runólfsson of Skálholt (1118–33) and Bishop Ketill Þorsteinsson of Hólar (1122–45).169 It seems that these men read the original version, and advised some changes. Whether these adjustments were restricted to the omission of the áttartǫlu ok konunga ævi170 is a matter of speculation. It is apparent that Ari made additions of some description to his second version, but precisely what these additions concerned is unclear. Yet for all that, Ari gives a commitment in his prologue to prefer that which es sannara reynisk171 (proves more true) and a veneer of verisimilitude is maintained throughout.172 He is constantly at pains to establish and quote his sources, moulding their testimony into a meaningful and unified whole within his text, generating distance between their accounts of events and his textual representation of those same events. At best, Ari’s account of early Icelandic history is highly selective; amounting to little more than “a collection of notes” rather than “a continuous history of Iceland or the Icelanders,”173 his account leaps from one defining moment to the next. These memoranda speak to what Ari considered relevant, but their wider significance cannot be verified. While his history offers some justification for the indigenous constitutional order of the thirteenth century, there are simply no other available contemporary or near contemporary sources to 168 íf i, pp. 3–28. 169 At the time of their involvement in Ari’s enterprise, all three had participated in some key moments of early Icelandic history: Bishops Þorlákr and Ketill, together with Sæmundr, were responsible for bringing the Christian Law section before the Alþingi, while Sæmundr was instrumental in the passing of the Tithe Law. 170 íf i, p. 3. 171 íf i, p. 3. 172 Ari’s concern for accuracy and display of authorial humility are common motifs in medieval prefaces: Sverrir Tómasson, Formálar íslenskra sagnaritara á miðöldum. Rannsókn bókmenntahefðar (Reykjavik, 1988), pp. 68, 155–157. Ari’s sources include his tutor, Teitr, whom he describes as “þess manns es ek kunna spakastan” and Hallr, who was “minnigr ok ólyginn.” íf i, pp. 4, 21. 173 Einar Arnórsson, Ari fróði (Reykjavik, 1942), p. 24.

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­either support or question the veracity of Ari’s account for the earlier p ­ eriod.174 For the purposes of the present study, which focuses on the preserved memories of an aspect of the early Icelandic past, this is not an absolute obstacle. The accumulation of more than two centuries of tradition, history and memories, Íslendingabók created a ‘grand narrative’ for early Icelandic history. The text identified and fixed the ‘figures of memory’ around which the early history of the island – a history in which Norway played an important role – was reconstructed. The landnám was the first great event of early Icelandic history; and the traditions and memories that sprang up around the settlement and those involved in this enterprise were transmitted and mediated in textual form in the various redactions of Landnámabók. Compiled between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, these texts represent a distinctively insular tradition and are the aggregation of more minor works that had accumulated over time. Five versions of Landnámabók have survived. Three of these are the medieval redactions known as Sturlubók, Hauksbók and Melabók respectively; two other medieval recensions – the original Landnámabók and a version compiled c.1220 by Styrmir Kárason (d. 1245), known as Styrmisbók, which was written on the basis of that older redaction – were also once in circulation but are now lost. In addition to these medieval versions are the two seventeenth-century renditions known as Skarðsárbók and Þórðarbók.175 Collectively these texts provide the main reference point for our knowledge of the island’s colonization in the late ninth century, charting the manner in which the incoming migrants acquired possession of vast tracts of uninhabited land through the process of land-­taking, gifting or some other form of valid land transaction. The material organization of these texts, which are subdivided into individual chapters, each chapter accounting for the place of origin of the settler (where known), his genealogy and family (where known), together with details of land-claim and its boundaries, facilitated any additions or omissions later compilers sought to make. The variations between the preserved accounts 174 The neat and precise lines drawn by Ari around the early political system correspond absolutely with the country’s institutional development, so much so that they may well reflect a retrospective account of a later situation, contemporary with the time of composition. 175 The standard edition of Landnámabók is that contained in íf i, pp. 29–397. For an overview of the textual problems, see Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. l–cliv, and Jón Jóhannesson, Gerðir Landnámabókar (Reykjavik, 1941). For a dissenting opinion, see Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier i Landnámabók: Kritiska bidrag till den isländska fristatstidens historia (Lund, 1974).

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s­ uggest not only that Landnámabók was an “unstable text”176 but that each version reflected the creative abilities of its compiler as well as his cultural, historical and social environment.177 Sturla Þórðarson (d. 1284) incorporated much of the material from Styrmisbók into his Landnámabók, but he was unafraid to omit details in certain instances and interpolated material from the sagas in others. Writing in the fourteenth century, Haukr Erlendsson had access to both Styrmisbók and Sturlubók and exhibited a degree of discernment in the use of his sources, abridging and editing the text in favour of more accurate information in places.178 Although there is no evidence to indicate that Haukr appropriated any versions of Landnámabók in addition to those by Sturla and Styrmir, he expresses his belief that others had augmented those works.179 Each redaction of Landnámabók, then, should be seen as a document of cultural utility that functioned as an important social and political tool, transmitting politically sensitive information that was meaningful to its contemporary audience. Traditional research into Landnámabók has tended to tread one of two paths of inquiry, both of which are based on the epilogue to Hauksbók.180 According to Haukr Erlendsson, Ari Þorgilsson and Kolskeggr Ásbjarnarson were the first men to write about the settlement. For a number of scholars, including Jakob Benediktsson, this statement offered irrefutable proof that Ari was behind or, at least, involved with the aboriginal text of Landnámabók.181 The second approach considers the possibility that Ari may not have been responsible for the production of a complete text, but rather he compiled a series of notes on a number of settlements. The internal structure and material organization of the landnámabækur support both of these hypotheses. If the original Landnámabók is problematic in terms of its authorship, time of composition and textual history, another thorny issue concerns the impulse that lay behind its composition and the related desire – or need – to compile additional versions. If the original stimulus for these texts was a desire to establish formal claims to landownership since the Age of Settlement (particularly at a time when the Church was attempting to gain control over the staðir),182 the impetus had 176 Jonas Wellendorf, ‘The Interplay of Pagan and Christian Traditions in Icelandic Settlement Myths,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 109, 1 (2010), p. 3. 177 Stefanie Würth, ‘Historiography and Pseudo-History,’ in Companion, ed. McTurk, p. 170. 178 Sverrir Tómasson, ‘Old Icelandic Prose’, p. 82. 179 íf i, pp. 395, 397; Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli’, p. lxxxi. 180 íf i, pp. 395, 397 (H354). 181 For a different theory see Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 88–92. 182 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 142–158, 196–203.

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changed by the thirteenth century. There was a transition from genealogical concerns to national historiography (Sturlubók)183 and the articulation of early Icelandic identity and the islanders’ place in the world, which correspond to a perceived interest in Icelandic affairs by external elements and a growing confidence in an early Icelandic sense of self. This assertion of self-confidence was further related to a perception that, as a kingless community, the Icelanders simply did not ‘fit’ with their European counterparts. This meant that the establishment and affirmation of specific origins assumed an even greater importance within the dynamic of the Iceland–Norway relationship. In short, thirteenth-century Icelanders sought to legitimize their status vis-à-vis Norway. The Sagas Produced by a society that sought to interpret its present through the knowledge and ideas of its past, the sagas are the products of the flourishing and dynamic literary environment of medieval Iceland. Saga composition is believed to have reached its apogee between the mid-thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. This study examines a number of Íslendingasögur and konungasögur in relation to Icelandic perceptions of Norway, Norwegians and the Norwegian king. Particularly useful are the short discursive narratives known as þættir, many of which describe the exploits of Icelanders at the Norwegian court. The value of the different saga genres as historical sources has been a ­topic of constant and often contentious debate among historians studying prethirteenth century Icelandic and Norwegian history.184 While the historical veracity of the accounts of the contemporary sagas (samtiðarsögur) was widely accepted,185 most scholars have been reluctant to accept the Íslendingasögur as accurate historical accounts of early Icelandic society simply because of their authors’ distance from the events recounted. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson’s study of the political environment of Commonwealth Iceland has, however, argued in favour of the Íslendingasögur as sources for social history.186 Both 183 See also the comments of Sverrir Tómasson, ‘Old Icelandic Prose,’ pp. 82–83. 184 This debate runs parallel to that of saga origins. For the oral side of this argument see, for example, Carol J. Clover, ‘The Long Prose Form,’ Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 101 (1986), 10–39; Hermann Pálsson, Oral Tradition; Theodore M. Andersson, ‘The Long Prose Form in Medieval Iceland,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 101, 3 (2002), 380–411; Tommy Danielsson, Hrafnkels saga eller Fallet med den undflyende traditionen (Hedemora, 2002); Gísli Sigurðsson, Medieval Icelandic Saga. 185 See, for example, the comments of Byock, Medieval Iceland, p. 34, and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains, p. 18. 186 Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains, pp. 27–31.

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the ­Íslendingasögur and the samtiðarsögur are structured along similar narrative and rhetorical principles. Although works of literature, the sagas “are at the same time the indigenous social documentation of a medieval people and, as such, they contribute a wealth of information about the functioning of a tradition-bound island culture.”187 The Íslendingasögur are primarily concerned with those events of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries relating to what became some of the island’s most important and eminent families in the thirteenth century. Despite their accounts being at some remove from the events their authors describe, these narratives are set in locations and at times with which their creators and audience would have been relatively familiar. The present study approaches these texts as ‘societal myths,’188 narratives which not only reveal insights into the society behind their production, but also capture what early Icelandic society was remembered as being like by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders. Drawing upon the ‘practical perspective’ approach taken by Hans Jacob Orning, the saga texts are interpreted as “evidence of what seemed plausible in the accounts of the situations.”189 These narratives furnish us with an opportunity to examine early Icelandic perceptions of their relationship with Norway as the Icelanders may have wished it to be. The challenge, then, is to read between the lines and attempt to discern what the sagas are hinting at through their characterization of this pivotal relationship. Icelandic impressions of Norway and the Norwegian kings, though largely missing from Ari’s Íslendingabók, are more evident in the landnámabækur and a number of the Íslendingasögur, including Egils saga. More extensive views are contained in the konungasögur. Of the three compendia of kings’ sagas, Morkinskinna and Heimskringla are of interest for their differing views of Norwegian kingship, perhaps arising out of their composition for different audiences. Believed to have been composed in Iceland c.1220, Morkinskinna comprises some thirty-seven leaves and covers the period 1030 to 1157 in its present form.190 Andersson locates the text in the contemporary 187 Byock, Medieval Iceland, pp. 49–50. For similarities in the form of these narratives, see Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains, pp. 30–31. 188 This approach is drawing upon Edmund Leach, ‘Introduction,’ in Myth, by M.I. SteblinKamenskij, trans. Mary P. Coote (Ann Arbor, 1982), pp. 1–20. 189 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, p. 314. 190 The manuscript is known as Gamle kongelige samling 1009 fol. The text has also been preserved in part of the later Flateyjarbók, Hulda and some kings’ sagas. For further see Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson, ‘Formáli,’ in íf xxiii, pp. vi–xiv.

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political relationship between Iceland and Norway, specifically the trade war that took place in the opening decades of the thirteenth century.191 Of the three compendia, Morkinskinna is the one that evinces a recognizably proIcelandic stance, a sentiment that is largely absent from Heimskringla, which was composed c.1225–1235. This text, which is made up of sixteen royal lives, has a similar timeframe to that of Fagrskinna, which may have been used as a source;192 its author was also clearly familiar with Morkinskinna, indicating that the decision to omit the pro-Icelandic þættir was entirely deliberate. Indeed, the text reveals a deliberate and purposeful authorial hand throughout. Heimskringla has often been attributed to Snorri Sturluson, although there is no consensus on the matter.193 The association of a named author with a specific text provides an interpretive context for that text.194 Snorri’s involvement with Hákon Hákonarson, domestic politics in Iceland and a commercial dispute with Norwegian merchants, would necessarily colour any interpretation he might give of the relationship between Iceland and Norway. And if it is not Snorri, the work is nevertheless clearly the composition of a well-travelled, well-connected Icelander who had had experience of the Norwegian court and aristocratic milieu. It is infused with thirteenth-century Icelandic observations and characterizations of Norway and her kings derived, in part, from personal memories. The view of the Norwegian kings in Heimskringla appears very much that of an Icelandic chieftain interpreting Norwegian history through the prism of the relationships that existed between the king and the country’s nobility. The þættir incorporated into Morkinskinna are of particular importance to the discussion in Chapter 5. Some scholars have suggested that the inclusion of these tales took place between the times of composition of the original text of Morkinskinna (c.1220) and the time when the extant manuscript was 191 Theodore M. Andersson and Kari Ellen Gade, ‘Introduction,’ in Morkinskinna, p. 65. For the background to this dispute see Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, pp. 283–287. 192 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, ‘Formáli,’ in íf xxvi, pp. xvii–xviii; Bjarni Einarsson, ‘Formáli,’ in íf xxix, pp. cxxv-cxxvii; Paul A. White, Non-Native Sources for the Scandinavian Kings’ Sagas (New York and London, 2005), p. 36. 193 Alan J. Berger, ‘Heimskringla and the Compilations,’ Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 114 (1999), 5–15; Margaret Cormack, ‘Egils saga, Heimskringla and the Daughter of Eiríkr blóðøx,’ Alvíssmál, 10 (2001), 61–68; and Jonna Louis-Jensen, ‘Heimskringla: Et værk af Snorri Sturluson?’, Nordica Bergensia, 14 (1997), 230–245, have all challenged the evidence suggesting Snorri’s authorship. Most recently Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 6–21, has chosen to regard Heimskringla as an anonymous work. 194 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 30; Baldur Hafstað, ‘Konungsmenn í kreppu og vinátta í Egils sögu,’ Skáldskaparmál, 1 (1990), 89–99, esp. pp. 96–97.

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­written (c.1275).195 This timeframe corresponds to increased tensions between Iceland and Norway over commercial activities and the growing influence of the Norwegian king in Icelandic affairs. It would be incorrect to describe these episodes as digressions, as they contribute to the creation of a more comprehensive view of the Norwegian monarchs, illuminating aspects of the kings’ characters, juxtaposing their positive attributes with those qualities deemed less desirable, providing for a more fully rounded portrayal of the kings. According to this reckoning, they are essentially short, political discourses. For the purpose of this study, the deliberate positioning of Icelanders abroad, and specifically at the Norwegian king’s court, is taken to speak to the wider relationship between the island and Norway. The Norwegian National Histories Iceland’s first historians wrote lives of the Norwegian kings. Although it is impossible to know precisely what details these konunga ævi contained, it appears from their citation as sources by Oddr Snorrason (Sæmundr) and the author of Heimskringla (Ari), that they remained in circulation in some form until the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. Although the respective lives by Sæmundr and Ari are no longer extant, they may have been used as sources by the authors of the so-called Norwegian synoptics. These three Norwegian national histories – Historia Norwegie, Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium and Ágrip – shed additional light on how the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway was perceived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Although these texts will be discussed with regard to their alternative presentation of the Icelandic settlement in Chapter 2, it is worth introducing each of these texts briefly at this juncture. The oldest Latin history of Norway is the Historia Norwegie (hn). Writing in 1998, Inger Ekrem remarked that despite repeated scrutiny “it remains to be established when, why, where, for whom and by whom it was written.”196 Details from within the text itself suggest it was composed before c.1130, while the account of the islands paying tribute to the Norwegian kings suggests a composition date of no later than 1266. Ekrem believed the document was written between c.1160–1175 by a bishop or aristocrat who was motivated by the desire to have an archiepiscopal see established in Nidaros. On this basis, Ekrem 195 Ármann Jakobsson and Þórður Ingi Guðjónsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. xxxiii–xxxiv, x–xi; Andersson and Gade, ‘Introduction,’ p. 13. 196 Inger Ekrem, ‘Historia Norwegie og erkebispesetet i Nidaros,’ Collegium Medievale, 11 (1998), p. 65.

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interprets the hn as a document of cultural utility, specifically designed to convince Cardinal Nicholas Breakspear and the pope that Norway was ­suitably qualified to possess its own archbishopric.197 The author of the hn, who is associated with the Agnellus to whom he dedicates his work, places a conversion account at the centre of his narrative. His text exhibits a Norwegian perspective throughout; the Trondheim area, Denmark, eastern Norway and the Orkneys have all been suggested as possible places of composition.198 The work bears a resemblance to the learned style of Latin clerical historiographical works, such as Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum, which clearly influenced the geographical exegesis that opens the work. At least one Icelandic source was also used.199 The Latin Norwegian history known as Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (ha) is believed to have been composed sometime between 1177 and 1188, a dating based on the description of the last event within the text and the dedication of the text to the then Archbishop of Nidaros, Eysteinn Erlendsson, who died in 1188.200 This dedication to an archbishop responsible for reforming the medieval Norwegian Church places the author of the ha firmly in the political and ecclesiastical upheaval of the late twelfth century.201 The author is a cleric known only as ‘Theodoricus monachus’, and it has been suggested that he may have been either Bishop Þórir of Hamar (d. 1196) or Archbishop Þórir of Nidaros (d. 1214), both of whom were associated with the Augustinian 197 Ekrem, ‘Historia Norwegie,’ pp. 49–63. She proposes that the hn may have been planned by Archbishop Eysteinn Erlendsson. 198 Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Introduction,’ in hn, pp. 15–24. Lars Boje Mortensen, ‘Historia N ­ orwegie and Sven Aggesen: Two Pioneers in Comparison’, in Historical Narratives, ed. Garipzanov, p. 67, suggests the hn may have been composed in either the bishoprics of Oslo or Hamar. Arguments for a Danish place of composition have been forwarded by Asgaut Steinnes, ‘Ikring Historia Norvegiæ,’ Historisk tiddskrift (Norway), 34 (1946–48), pp. 17–32; Svend Ellehøj, Studier over den ældste norrøne historieskrivning (Copenhagen, 1965), pp. 146–147; and Odd Sandaaker, ‘Historia Norvegiæ og Biskop Eirik av Stavanger,’ Maal og minne (1985), 82–86. Sophus Bugge, ‘Bemærkninger om den i Skotland fundne latinske Norges krønike,’ Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie (Copenhagen, 1873), pp. 37–41, mooted Orkney as a place of composition although he conceded that it was the work of a Norwegian author. 199 The genealogy of Earl Rǫgnvaldr included in the hn’s account of Rollo is clearly derived from the landnámabækur. íf i, p. 314. 200 ha, p. 1. 201 Sverre Bagge, ‘Theodoricus Monachus – Clerical Historiography in Twelfth-century Norway,’ Scandinavian Journal of History, 14, 3 (1989), p. 114.

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monastic house of St Victor near Paris.202 The timeframe of the ha covers the period from the alleged emergence of a unified Norwegian realm under the aegis of Haraldr hárfagri to the death of Sigurðr Jórsalafari in 1130. In a fashion similar to that of the hn, the narrative is structured around the evangelizing monarch, Óláfr Tryggvason, and emphasizes the role he played in the propagation of Christianity. Of particular relevance to the present study is Theodoricus’s use of oral Icelandic sources and his description of the island’s settlement. That being said, although Theodoricus outwardly appears to claim that he had no written sources he does refer to a Catalogus Regum Norwagiensium, although whether we can infer that this text was, in fact, the konunga ævi of either Sæmundr or Ari is purely speculative.203 The only early vernacular history of Norway is Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum. The composition has been dated to the late twelfth century on the basis of the textual relationship which exists between Ágrip and Theodoricus’s ha. The general consensus, however, is that on the basis of its linguistic archaisms the extant text is a product of the first half of the thirteenth century. Ágrip opens with the reign of Hálfdan svarti in c.880, only to end abruptly with the reign of Ingi krókhryggr in 1136 and the beginning of the Norwegian civil war. A significant portion – at least twenty per cent – of the surviving text has been lost, but it is likely that it covered a similar timeframe to that of the ha and continued to the reign of Sverrir in 1177.204 The surviving pages reveal the existence of a textual relationship between this first vernacular Norwegian national history and the Latin HN, but the identification of the common source their authors may have used – and, in particular, whether that source was Icelandic or Norwegian – has been a matter of considerable scholarly speculation.205 When it comes to the present study, Ágrip proves to be the least useful of the three Norwegian histories: its author’s eyes are firmly fixed on events in Norway. No account of the discovery or settlement of Iceland is given; the island is only mentioned directly on two occasions, although a number of Icelandic personages in the services of the Norwegian kings are referred to.206

202 Peter Foote, ‘Introduction,’ in ha, pp. ix–x. See also White, Non-Native Sources, p. 21. 203 Foote, ‘Introduction’, pp. xiii–xxiii, esp. p. xvi. On Theodoricus’s Catalogus, see Ellehøj, Studier over den ældtse norrøne historieskrivning, pp. 182–196. 204 For an overview of the preservation, provenance, dating and contents of Ágrip, see Bjarni Einarsson, ‘Formáli’, pp. v–lix. 205 These arguments have been summarized by Theodore M. Andersson, ‘Kings’ Sagas (Konungasögur)’, in Old Norse-Icelandic Literature, eds Clover and Lindow, pp. 197–238. 206 íf xxix, pp. 22, 29 (Iceland); 10 (Þórálfr enn sterki) and 36 (Úlfr Óspaksson).

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Conclusion These narratives were performed and circulated to a wide, native audience: they must have been relevant and meaningful. It is almost impossible to know how accurate these texts’ accounts of events are or, indeed, the relationship between the text and those events and the age of the events described. They are essentially the history or ‘official memory’ of the Icelanders. They reflect the concerns, ideology and views of the society that produced them. A context for these accounts can be suggested: the keen interest taken by the Icelanders in their past. This interest was likely generated by a number of different concerns – some economic and others political or social – each of which contributed to and defined a sense of identity. Memory and identity are closely linked: identity is “constructed and reconstructed by acts of memory”.207 The landnám was the first great event of early Icelandic society. It is essential to the way in which the past was conceived, interpreted and constructed in early Icelandic literature. The memory of this event was multi-layered: it was embodied in the colonists who participated directly in the settlement, their families and descendants, and the society the migrants had left behind them and that which they established in terra nova. Individual, familial and societal memories of the landnám converged in the narratives describing and memorializing this event.208 This event coincided with a break from Norway. As such, it was a point of instability that early Icelandic authors sought to stabilize in their accounts. Memories of the same events are preserved in different ‘modes of remembering’; each account reconstructs, renegotiates and re-transmits the past.209 These various ‘modes of remembering’ resulted in different literary genres: historical works (Íslendingabók, the landnámabækur, Hungrvaka), longer narratives (Íslendingsögur, konungasögur) and normative works (laws). When taken as a whole and combined with works produced in Norway describing Iceland and the Icelanders, the sources offer a fuller picture of early Icelandic society than that provided by any one source-type in isolation. The inclusion of early references to Norway and Norwegians in Icelandic sources, and the inclusion of references to Iceland and Icelanders in Norwegian sources, is a

207 Erll, ‘Cultural Memory Studies,’ p. 6. 208 Pragya Vohra, ‘The Eiríkssynir in Vínland: Family Exploration or Family Myth?’, Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 4 (2008), p. 250, expresses similar opinions in her discussion of the narratives describing the exploration and settlement of Greenland. 209 Erll, ‘Cultural Memory Studies,’ p. 7.

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d­ eliberate choice on the part of the memory specialists. These interpretations are captured in cultural memory: they are included in reconstructions of the past that are repeatedly performed and become fixtures within the cognitive framework of ‘us’ and ‘them.’ They document the early relationship between the two countries; they provide a paradigm for interpreting action and for action itself.

chapter 2

The Historical Mythology of Iceland According to the accounts preserved in the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur, Iceland was settled in the ninth century by high-born men who rejected the rule of the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri, and chose instead to emigrate to a North Atlantic island and re-establish themselves there. This well-known story, the product of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic memory specialists, is frequently cited as an explanation for the independent character of the Icelanders and the society they created. Yet this interpretation of the landnám and early Icelandic history is highly problematic, for none of the­­ ­extant accounts documenting these events may be regarded as contemporary testimonies. They likely originated in the oral traditions that sprang up following the island’s colonization, but in their present form should be seen as variants of an origo gentium or Icelandic foundation narrative. Their authors sought not only to establish the origins of the islanders, but also to construct an Icelandic self-image. Central to the construction of this self-image was their own understanding and perception of the role played by Norway in the landnám. This chapter examines the accounts of the landnám found in the Icelandic and Norwegian national histories in order to suggest what these descriptions reveal about the memory of the settlement-age relationship between the two countries. Although all of these histories were composed at some significant remove from the landnám itself, cultural memory provides a useful conceptual framework within which their accounts of this event may be interpreted and evaluated.1 The following discussion draws on Jan Assmann’s work about the process by which factual history was converted into remembered history or myth. The application of the term ‘myth’ to any source has strong connotations; it attributes both authority and potency to the source and invites scrutiny of its representation of reality.2 A myth can be a text, oral or written, with which a community identifies itself and from which it generates a sense of ‘Wir-Gefühl’ 1 Some of the ideas in this chapter were discussed in a short paper (“Sturlubók and Cultural Memory”) presented at the Stofnun Árna Magnússonar, Reykjavik, in November 2014. 2 Bruce Lincoln, Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology and Scholarship. (Chicago & London, 1999), pp. ix, 149, 150. As for the supposed opposition between ‘history’ and ‘myth,’ this dichotomy has proved untenable; an approach that considers medieval texts as ‘integral texts’ has therefore been advocated by scholars, such as Margaret Clunies Ross. For further, see

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and worldview. Functioning as statements of differentiation, myths provide a cognitive and interpretative framework for the related issues of ‘who we are’ and ‘where we come from.’3 As such, they enjoy a normative and formative power, constructing the identity of the group through the creation of a shared past, the belief in which creates a socially-constructed ‘imagined community.’ Studies in the origin and formation of a sense of identity, commonly referred to as ethnogenesis, have become commonplace in early medieval s­ tudies.4 Although a study of Icelandic ethnogenesis (or ethnogeneses) is not the focus of the present book, Reinhard Wenskus’s concept of Stammesbildung  – the process by which barbarian tribes comprised of members from diverse backgrounds became cohesive entities through their allegiance to common ­ancient customs – is useful.5 According to Wenskus, these ancient customs were enshrined in a nucleus of tradition or Traditionskern and transmitted to the group by a narrow noble elite, which advocated that the group should exist according to a constitution or Verfassung. A common history and common myth of origins was key to fostering group unity. Political leaders were able to manipulate ancient traditions, myths and practices to redefine the group as being the descendants of common ancestors.6 Tradition – genealogy, historical mythology, the king and the name of the gens – endowed the group with its consciousness and historical continuity.7 Those willing to embrace these rubrics could be assimilated into the group. Admittedly, Wenskus’s idea of Traditionskern is problematic on several levels. One of the difficulties is the vexed question of ascertaining how deeply rooted it was in the popular consciousness. Walter Pohl has argued that the magnitude of many early medieval gentes precluded the application of

Clunies Ross, Prolonged Echoes: Old Norse Myths in Northern Society, vol. 2: The Reception of Norse Myths in Medieval Iceland (Odense, 1998). 3 The following works are useful for a study of myth: Smith, Ethnic Origins; Anthony D. Smith, ‘The Ethnic Sources of Nationalism,’ Survival, 35, 1 (1993), 48–62; Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation (Oxford, 1999); Susan Reynolds, ‘Medieval Origines Gentium and the Community of the Realm,’ History, 68, 224 (1983), 375–390; and Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300 (Oxford, 1984). 4 See also the discussion under ‘Issues of Identity’ in Chapter 5 and references therein. 5 Reinhard Wenskus, Stammesbildung und Verfassung: Das Werden der frühmittelalterlichen Gentes (Cologne, 1961). 6 Smith, ‘Ethnic Sources of Nationalism,’ p. 50, highlights the flexibility of historical memories. 7 Wenskus, Stammesbildung, pp. 54–82; Alexander Callander Murray, ‘Reinhard Wenskus on ‘Ethnogenesis,’ Ethnicity and the Origin of the Franks,’ in On Barbarian Identity: Critical Approaches to Ethnicity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Andrew Gillett (Turnhout, 2002), p. 46.

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a­ nthropological paradigms of group identity creation to these entities.8 That being said, membership or the feeling of belonging to a wider group is not a complex phenomenon restricted to an educated elite.9 Another problem is the remove at which Traditionskern operates from its sources. This has prompted Goffart, for one, to argue that the idea of identity creation from ancient traditions is untenable, as ‘folk memory’ cannot enjoy such longevity.10 Despite these criticisms, however, the Icelandic scenario appears to lend itself to Wenskus’s conceptualization of Traditionskern. The island’s colonization c.870 was a dynamic and active phenomenon within recent memory. In relative terms, both the landnám and its documentation occurred late. Writing provided a new means for mediating and representing memories of the early Icelandic past. Tales of foundation and settlement are characteristic of foundation narratives and the landnám is a mythically charged key point of reference in many different texts. The migration from Norway, the island’s settlement and the emergence of early Icelandic society were not events consigned to the repository of the distant, remote past. Any fears that the first generation of pioneers who settled the island would recede from the collective memory was allayed by the desire of subsequent generations to trace their ancestry back to one of the early colonists and, in particular, to identify with Ingólfr Arnarson, who, according to the settlement accounts, was the island’s primordial settler.11 Not only was this individual identified with the inception of the settlement, the memory specialists documenting this event characterized him as an exemplary figure, placing him at the centre of their web of culturally important information. For the Icelanders, the cultivation of their own historical mythology, based on the deeds of the first colonists in the late ninth century, was one of the few exploitable means available to them, firstly, to assert their identity as a ­people – their language, laws and customs being remarkably similar to those of 8

9 10

11

Walter Pohl, ‘Telling the Difference: Signs of Ethnic Identity,’ in Strategies of Distinction: The Construction of Ethnic Communities, 300–800, eds Walter Pohl and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden, 1998), p. 67. Patrick Wormald, ‘Engla Lond: The Making of an Allegiance,’ Journal of Historical Sociology, 7, 1 (1994), p. 18. Walter Goffart, ‘Does the Distant Past Impinge on the Invasion Age Germans?’, in On Barbarian Identity, ed. Gillett, pp. 21–37; see also his The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton, 1988). ­Goffart’s position is summarized in James, Europe’s Barbarians, pp. 108–111. See further the comments of Hermann Moisl, Lordship and Tradition in Barbarian Europe (Lewiston NY, 1999), p. 36. íf i, pp. 5, 42–47.

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their Norwegian counterparts – and, secondly, to defend their identity against slurs levelled at them by others suggesting alternative interpretations of the settlement. This particular concern is evident in the strongly worded epilogue to Styrmisbók, which connects the learned undertaking of documenting the settlement and an historical awareness of one’s ancestry with the desire to offset the criticisms of foreigners.12 This common history was based on “a cultural affinity and ideological ‘fit’ with the presumed ancestors” as much as a “spiritual kinship.”13 Genealogies, a “highly personalised and restricted form of historical memory,” p ­ rovided the means by which personal and family histories could be preserved in a structured yet portable format.14 They are also an aboriginal component of cultural memory.15 The incorporation of genealogies within the preserved narrative accounts of the landnám, and early Icelandic history more broadly, linked successive generations to one another and to the settlement, the early pioneers, their land-claims and their deeds. The genealogical record was sufficiently flexible to accommodate later facts and circumstances as it preserved change within “a doctrine of social permanence.”16 This approach framed the island’s early history and the Icelanders’ historical memory of the settlement for the most part around real actors and actual places, even if some of the events and precise details are open to dispute. The island’s settlers themselves became the leading actors in the historical mythology of Iceland. The landnám created a society that differed from its Norwegian counterpart and which developed along a distinct trajectory. By the early twelfth ­century, 12

íf i, p. 336; Landnámabók, p. 6: “People often say that writing about the Settlements is irrelevant learning, but we think we can better meet the criticism of foreigners when they accuse us of being descended from slaves or scoundrels, if we know for certain the truth about our ancestry. And for those who want to know ancient lore and how to trace genealogies, it’s better to start at the beginning than to come in at the middle. Anyway, all civilized nations want to know about the origins of their own society and the beginnings of their own race.” 13 Smith, Myths and Memories, p. 58. 14 R.R. Davies, ‘Presidential Address: The Peoples of Britain and Ireland, 1100–1400. iv: Language and Historical Mythology,’ Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 7 (1997), p. 22. For genealogies and Icelandic historians, see Joan Turville-Petre, ‘The Genealogist and History: Ari to Snorri,’ Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 20 (1978–81), 7–23; and Úlfar Bragason, ‘The Politics of Genealogies in Sturlunga saga,’ trans. Anna Yates, in Scandinavia and Europe 800–1350: Contact, Conflict, and Coexistence, eds Jonathan Adams and Katherine Holman (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 309–321. 15 Glauser, ‘Sagas of Icelanders,’ p. 210. 16 Laura Bohannon, ‘A Genealogical Charter,’ Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 22, 4 (1952), p. 314.

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a cultural-ideological myth had been constructed around the settlement, ­preserved in the earliest Icelandic history of the island and the origins of its society, Íslendingabók. This text anchored the ancestors of twelfth-century and later Icelanders in time and space and provided the islanders with ‘figures of memory.’17 It constructed the early Icelandic past around the island’s relationship with Norway. The core myth disseminated by Íslendingabók was rapidly incorporated into the islanders’ memory of the past. This text and its account of Icelandic origins was canonized by the compilers of the thirteenthand fourteenth-century landnámabækur, who used it as a touchstone for their own accounts of the settlement. But while Ari’s memoranda remained remarkably uncontested, these later memory specialists managed the role played by Norway in their accounts in a different way, infusing their reconstructions of the past with an additional emotional component. In this respect, their presentation of Norway and the Norwegian king reveal a marked shift away from Ari’s largely neutral tone. While it was simply neither possible nor desirable to excise either Norway or Norwegian input from accounts of the island’s early history, it was possible to define the nature of that Norwegian involvement and impose restrictions on it. When the Icelandic accounts of the landnám are evaluated against the Norwegian versions of the same event contained in the three Norwegian s­ ynoptic histories, their points of divergence become apparent. It is worth noting, in particular, the traditions surrounding two key figures, Ingólfr Arnarson and ­Haraldr hárfagri, which are suggestive of Norwegian perceptions of the o­ rigins of island society and its character, on the one hand, and of Icelandic perceptions of Norwegian autocracy and the Norwegian king, on the other. Both characters are placed at the heart of memorable narratives and prompt consideration of the role of memorability in cultural memory and the function of verbal art in the construction of memory.18 The landnám According to Íslendingabók Although the island’s settlement is mentioned in a number of non-native sources, the memory of the colonization remains overwhelmingly insular. The ­earliest extant native account of the landnám dates from the twelfth century and is contained in Íslendingabók. Although remarkable for its brevity, this terse 17 Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 37–42, 168. ‘Figures of memory,’ the fixed points around which cultural memory is constructed, are discussed in Chapter 1. 18 Rigney, ‘Portable Monuments,’ p. 380.

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work provided a platform for the historical, cultural and textual ­construction of the Icelanders. Ari’s account serves the dual function of providing a succinct history of the island from the arrival of the Norse migrants, and of fixing the Icelandic settlement within a wider historical context. The landnám is dated with reference to the death of Christ, the death of the English martyr King Edmund and the reign of the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri.19 Not only does Ari introduce the landnám into a known chronology, within the continuum of Christian and Norwegian history, he also places it within a broader Norse context: Edmund is slain by Ívarr, the son of the legendary Viking raider Ragnarr loðbrók, while the landnám is linked to the consolidation of the early Norwegian kingdom under Haraldr hárfagri. These references locate the landnám in the late ninth century and link together the deeds of conquerors, raiders and colonists, suggesting that Ari saw the enterprise as fitting into the activities of Scandinavians abroad and framed it within parameters his audience could understand. For the rest of his account, however, he ‘nativizes’ his chronological reckoning by dating events to serving lawspeakers. Íslendingabók clearly identifies the colonists with a particular territory, Iceland, where, once settlement has taken place, a history of the event focussing on its key players is created and disseminated. This origin myth was propagated through the vernacular as opposed to Latin, emphasizing the linguistic unity of the islanders, while the cultural symbols – the law, the assemblies, the lack of a sovereign – each of which fostered and reified a sense of group identity, all have a place in Íslendingabók. For Smith, these cultural symbols comprise the “bedrock of shared meanings and ideals, which guide action and determine the direction of social change” essential to the generation of identity.20 Ari’s selective account of the settlement is an entirely deliberate one: he identified what he believed were the important events in the island’s early history and located its society within a chronological framework. He did not merely record a shared history: he established its parameters and instituted its ‘figures of memory.’ Íslendingabók inaugurated the core myth of the Icelanders; it established the cultural memory of the Icelanders and the framework within which certain aspects of a common past were prioritized above others. Within this common past, Norway loomed large. Ari’s account of the landnám itself is remarkably brief and focuses on five settlers: the primordial resident, Ingólfr, and four illustrious colonists, one 19

íf i, p. 4. Ari’s dating of the landnám to 871 is supported by tephrochronology. For further, see Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Patterns of Settlement in Iceland: A Study in Prehistory,’ Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 25 (1998), pp. 2–3. 20 Smith, Myths and Memories, p. 57.

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drawn from each of the island’s Quarters. This suggests that, despite its brevity, Ari’s account of the landnám was both territorially and politically balanced. It is hardly accidental that the first four Icelandic bishops were descended from these four settlers,21 nor that Ari himself was related to three of these ­individuals (Hrollaugr, Auðr and Helgi), while the fourth (Ketilbjǫrn) was an ancestor of Ari’s foster-father and tutor, Teitr. Intriguingly, no explanation is given for the sudden desire of Ingólfr, Hrollaugr Rǫgnvaldsson, Ketilbjǫrn Ketilsson, Auðr and Helgi enn magri to abandon their homes and sail for Iceland. There is no mention of any financial incentive to seek pastures new, or any suggestion of particular conditions in their homelands – such as shortage of land, civil unrest, increase in population – that might have propelled these individuals to re-establish themselves overseas.22 Indeed a population issue is only raised twice: firstly – and explicitly – in connection with the imposition of the landaurar (land-dues) on the departing Norwegians by Haraldr hárfagri, and secondly by Ari’s declaration that within the space of sixty years the land was albyggt or fully settled, so that after that time no further settlement was made.23 According to Íslendingabók, then, the landnám was a temporally defined event. It has a beginning – Ingólfr, the only settler whom Ari’s describes as ‘inserting’ himself into the island’s textual landscape24 – and an end, some sixty years later. Both the Norse and Christian identities Ari generates are reliant on Norwegian ancestry and suggest that the possession of Norwegian blood a­ ncestors was perceived as a form of symbolic capital, both within and outside Iceland, in the twelfth century, particularly for a ‘new’ people attempting to locate and document its place in the world.25 All of Ari’s chosen settlers are emphatically Norwegian in origin. Ingólfr and Ketilbjǫrn are each described as a maðr nórœnn26 (man of the north, i.e. Norwegian). This term denotes their geographical and ethnic category. Hrollaugr’s Norwegian status is revealed through his identification with a particular territory: he is described as being 21 22 23 24 25 26

Ari’s selected settlers reinforce the hypothesis that Íslendingabók may have been an ecclesiastical commission. On the explanations, see James H. Barrett, ‘What Caused the Viking Age?’, Antiquity, 82 (2008), 671–685. íf i, pp. 5–6, 9. íf i, p. 5. Ari describes how, when Ingólfr arrived on the island, he came ashore at Ingólfshǫfði and later took possession of Ingólfsfell. Herwig Wolfram, ‘New Peoples Around the Year 1000,’ in Europe Around the Year 1000, ed. Przemysław Urbańczyck (Warsaw, 2001), pp. 391–408. íf i, pp. 5, 6.

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á Mœri,27 from present-day Møre og Romsdal in Vestlandet. The only woman amongst Ari’s settlers, Auðr, is the daughter of a hersis nórœns28 (Norwegian lord). This identification suggests that her paternity is what makes her Norwegian: she is Norwegian by blood. A double northern emphasis is given for Helgi enn magri, who is nórænn in his own right, in addition to being sonr Eyvindar austmanns29 (the son of Eyvindr the east man). Not only are all of Ari’s chosen settlers derived from Norway, the landnámabækur reveal they enjoy a social status that is decidedly more aristocratic than peasant in character. Ingólfr is a descendant of a legendary Norwegian hero, Hrómundr Gripsson;30 Hrollaugr is the son of Earl Rǫgnvaldr;31 Helgi is the grandson of the Irish king Kjarval;32 while Auðr is the daughter of the ­Norwegian lord, Ketill flatnefr, and wife of Óláfr inn hvíti, who, according to Eyrbyggja saga, was “mestr herkonungr fyrir vestan haf”33 (the greatest warlord in the Western Isles). These individuals are not only well-heeled Norwegians: they are also well-connected and well-travelled. Moreover, their presence in the historical record outlined by Íslendingabók and the preserved versions of Landnámabók gives an interpretation of the settlement as a westward migration ostensibly led by petty aristocrats or, at the very least, those wealthy enough to possess (and man) their own ships, emphasizing the high-born status of the few named chieftains relative to the vast number of unnamed – and, possibly, unwilling – participants in the island’s colonization. Travel does not appear to diminish the norrænn status Ari ascribes to both Helgi and Auðr. They had spent extensive periods of time abroad. Helgi’s nickname enn magri (the lean) was acquired following his fosterage in the Hebrides, when he lost so much weight that his family did not recognize him,34 while prior to her arrival in Iceland, Auðr travelled in Scotland, the Orkneys and the Faeroe Islands.35 It is virtually inconceivable that Ari would not have been aware of the time Auðr had spent overseas as she was one of his own ­ancestors, yet he chooses to remain silent on the matter.36 Irrespective 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

íf i, p. 6. íf i, p. 6. íf i, p. 6. The term austmaðr and its use to denote Norwegians in Iceland (mainly merchants) is discussed in Chapter 5. íf i, 38, 40. íf i, p. 314. íf i, p. 248. íf i, p. 136; íf iv, p. 4. íf i, p. 248. íf i, 136–138; ÍF V, pp. 6–9. íf i, pp. 26, 28.

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of these prolonged stays outside of Norway, or the extended periods of contact with other cultures, which both Helgi and Auðr must have experienced, the integrity of their norrænn status remains valid and intact. While their continued designation as norrænn may be indicative of the early twelfth-century relationship between Norway and Iceland and the close ties between the two countries, it also points to deliberate manipulation on Ari’s part, allowing him to construct an Icelandic past in which the ancestors of the landnámsmenn (settlers) and the island’s first bishops were shown in the best possible Norwegian light. We may surmise that Auðr’s travels also serve an additional f­ unction: she connects together the greater North Atlantic world, areas in which Norwegians were active, and represents the movement westward across the ocean. Norrænn may have been a situational identity that enjoyed currency in certain jurisdictions.37 It was likely one of a number of recognizable identities denoting varying levels of belonging and affiliation but not dependent on political unification. Evidence for this is found on a runestone from Egå in eastern Jutland, which has been dated to c.970–1020.38 This monument was raised by Alfkell and his sons in memory of their kinsman, Manni, an individual who was in the service of Kætils þess norrøna. Although located in Denmark, the stone’s inscription indicates that the term ‘Norwegian’ was meaningful and enjoyed validity in that jurisdiction. A Norwegian living within the Danish realm was not considered to be a Dane; rather he retained his Norwegian identity. Helgi and Auðr likewise retained their Norwegian identity despite their place of ­residence. Additional documentary evidence for the existence of situational identities in early medieval Scandinavia is contained in the account of Ohthere’s voyages preserved in King Alfred’s Orosius. In this tale, which was declaimed at the king’s court and most likely recorded by an Anglo-Saxon scribe, Ohthere describes himself as a norðmann as well as a Hålogalander, suggesting his territorial identity was multi-layered.39 Ari’s selected settlers enjoy a two-fold unity: their decision to settle in Iceland, and their Norwegian ancestry. The unification under a Norse d­ esignation of these settlers is underlined by Ari’s resolute silence about the earlier pre-­ settlement voyages of discovery to the island, such as those undertaken by

37

38 39

For situational identity, see Patrick Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity as a Situational Construct in the Early Middle Ages,’ Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien, 113 (1983), 15–26. The Egå stone’s inscription and its translation are included in the Danish runestone database accessed 3 April 2017: http://runer.ku.dk/VisGenstand.aspx?Titel=Egå-sten. Ohthere, pp. 44, 47.

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­Naddoddr, Garðarr Svávarsson and Flóki Vilgerðarson.40 His treatment of Iceland’s pre-settlement population is brief: no sooner had the Norse colonists arrived than the monks (papar) who had previously sought solace in the island’s remote location opted to abandon their sanctuary with such haste they left their bœkr írskar ok bjǫllur ok bagla (Irish books, bells and staffs) behind.41 Thus Ari effectively deletes all mention of these monks from the settlement record and, therefore, removes this Irish Christian element from those later sources which derive some of their primary material from Ari’s account of the settlement.42 His brisk dismissal of the papar establishes that the migrants, noble pioneers from the upper echelons of Norwegian society, came to live in an otherwise uninhabited island environment. The only connection or, perhaps, the only worthy connection, is that which exists between the island and its ancestral homeland, Norway. Importantly, however, by writing the preChristian past of Iceland into his early history of the island, Ari indicates that the land itself was no terra damnata but terra Christiana, a status that would be relinquished temporarily only to be re-embraced on distinctively Icelandic terms once the migrants had fulfilled their role as founders of a society. The place of the papar in Íslendingabók’s account of the landnám has been considered by Pernille Hermann, who believes the structure of the work to be largely bound to “learned medieval typological paradigms and to salvation history,” both of which enabled Ari to reclaim aspects from the pre-Christian past and re-present them in a meaningful way to a contemporary audience.43 For Aidan MacDonald, at least, the papar represent a tradition comprised of two interwoven strands: “actual historical experience of encounters between Norsemen and insular ecclesiastics in the North Atlantic” and “the memory of that experience and creative reflection upon it.”44 According to this premise, the tradition of the papar was recast and re-infused with additional layers of contemporary and site-specific meanings. This re-tooling of the past for the purposes of the present brings us back once more to Assmann’s definition of 40 41 42 43

44

íf i, pp. 34–38. íf i, p. 5. For further consideration of the papar, see The Papar in the North Atlantic: Environment and History, ed. Barbara E. Crawford, (St. Andrew’s, 2002). Grønlie, ‘Introduction,’ in Íslendingabók, p. xxvi. Pernille Hermann, ‘Who were the Papar? Typological Structures in Íslendingabók,’ in The Viking Age: Ireland and the West. Papers from the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Viking Congress, Cork, 18–27 August 2005, eds John Sheehan and Donnchadh Ó Corráin (Dublin, 2010), p. 147. Aidan MacDonald, ‘The Papar and Some Problems: A Brief Review,’ in The Papar, ed. Crawford, p. 21.

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cultural memory and its emphasis on the active preservation, presentation and re-presentation of the past. Chapters 2 to 5 of Íslendingabók follow the establishment and development of a society from a hodgepodge of individual enterprises lacking a unity and cohesion outside of their own immediate land-claims to a society with all the requisite administrative tools and legal institutions in place.45 The ephemerality of the papar aside, when the Norwegian émigrés first arrived, Iceland was óbyggt or uninhabited by people but believed to be home to landvættir or ‘landbeings,’ the protectors of the land.46 If the land is domesticated by the arrival of the colonists, the endeavour does not end there and then: the land taken by the settlers is further civilized as the law is brought to Iceland, an assembly is established, society adopts a single calendar and the country converts to ­Christianity. Notwithstanding the learning that the Church later brought to the island, the development phase outlined in Íslendingabók takes place prior to the islanders’ conversion. This points to Ari’s desire to connect Icelandic society and its structures, including the Alþingi – the very forum in which ­Christianity would be accepted in c.999/1000 – to the island’s pre-­Christian history. These pre-Christian structures are maintained post-­conversion. Meanwhile, those acts which consolidated the islanders’ society suggest that the ­early colonists were not the “groups of unorganized settlers” some scholars have believed them to have been.47 If Ari’s account of the ‘human’ settlement emphasizes the integrity of the Norwegian antecedents of the landnámsmenn, he further suggests that the institutional development of the island also owed a debt to Norway. The ­emergence of a cohesive society bounded by a single law-code only takes place once that law-code has been brought to the island ‘from Norway,’ while the assembly system implemented in the island is one with which the Norwegian migrants were familiar. One might infer from Íslendingabók’s account that the core and essence of civilized society was imported from the mother country, Norway. That core would eventually include Christianity, when it came, even if the decision to convert, according to Ari at least, was the free choice of the islanders. The memory of these Norwegian legal and institutional norms, their ­adaptation to the circumstances of an island community located in the

45 46

47

ÍF I, pp. 6–13. Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘Land-Taking and Text-Making in Medieval Iceland,’ in Text and Territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, eds Sylvia Tomasch and Sealy Gilles (Philadelphia, 1998), pp. 162–163. Mundal, ‘Íslendingabók,’ p. 115.

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North Atlantic and the manner in which they were legitimized is the subject of Chapter 3. Ari’s consideration of Iceland’s pre-Christian past is covered by Chapters 1 to 6 of Íslendingabók. Chapter 7 forms the centre of his account: the Icelanders’ conversion to Christianity. Ari fashions the islanders into suitable candidates for membership of a wider Christian community. By connecting the cultural products of the Icelanders’ pre-Christian past with their acceptance of the one true faith, the island returns once more to the Christianized status that had lapsed following the departure of the papar. This continuity across the long-view of the past results in the creation of an amalgamated Icelandic national and Christian identity. Again, the impetus for conversion comes from Norway, re-emphasizing the significance of the ancestral homeland to the islands’ cultural and spiritual development. Else Mundal contends that Ari’s disproportionate focus on the conversion of the islanders was due to his agenda, specifically his efforts to write the Icelandic past into Christian history and, by extension, to generate an Icelandic identity synonymous with that of a Christian people overseen and guided by their ecclesiastical leaders. The oddity of the recorded circumstances of the Icelandic conversion, discussed in Chapter 3, meant that this story was unique to the islanders and facilitated its inclusion within a history that had a Christian perspective.48 Yet for all that, Ari’s interest in the conversion is ultimately more secular in nature: rather than detailing the spiritual change wrought by Christianization, he is more focused on the institutional and legal aspects.49 This speaks to what Orri Vésteinsson has described as the lack of ‘corporate identity’ of the early Icelandic Church, an identity that did not begin to establish itself until the mid-thirteenth century.50 The ecclesiastical celebration introduced by Íslendingabók is continued in Hungrvaka. This latter text, which was also written at the instigation of the Haukdælir, bestows a status befitting a king on the island’s early spiritual leaders. The prologue directly addresses the continued interest in Icelandic origins and, in particular, the origins of the island’s bishops, men who happened to be drawn from the ranks of the Haukdælir themselves.51 An interest in the origins of their bishops would certainly account for Íslendingabók’s selection of settlers: each was an ancestor of one of the country’s first four e­ cclesiastical ­leaders. There is, of course, an obvious explanation behind the decision to bestow such esteem on their bishops – which must have been a conscious one 48 49 50 51

Mundal, ‘Íslendingabók,’ p. 119. Grønlie, ‘Introduction,’ p. xxiii. Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization, p. 209. íf xvi, pp. 3–4.

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on the part of the island’s earliest authors, even if later writers continued the practice by adhering to their pre-existing model. There was no executive authority, and these ecclesiastical leaders, all of whom had Norwegian ancestors and many of whom had characteristics that qualified them to be kings, provided a suitable and convenient alternative.52 They provided a conduit between ­secular authority – for the early bishops came from the island’s most powerful families – and the divine. Their celebration had another consequence: whereas in Scandinavia kings were revered as society’s leaders and were eventually adopted as saints, Icelandic bishops were venerated as the island’s first saints.53 Indeed it is tempting to think that the Haukdælir were also behind the commission of Ari’s Íslendingabók. Both Íslendingabók and Hungrvaka ­cultivated the political and ecclesiastical status of this family. They not only communicated their position at the apex of early Icelandic society to the islanders at large, but also justified this position by referring to their blood relationship with the Norwegian kings in the lost konunga ævi. While the version of Ari’s text that has survived fixes Norway firmly within Iceland’s cultural memory, the precise relationship between the two countries is open to a number of different interpretations simply because Ari’s first draft has not survived. As discussed in Chapter 1, Ari amended his original text in two ways: (1) he made changes on the advice of his textual advisors and (2) he incorporated additional information that had become better known to him.54 Although scholars have interpreted the first of these amendments to mean the inclusion of more ‘Icelandic’ information, there is no reason to believe that Norway and, in particular, the Norwegian kings, were not Ari’s original focus.55 These individuals were, after all, the subject matter of the first historical work by Sæmundr Sigfússon. The preserved version of Íslendingabók emphatically connects the island’s early history to Norway. It stresses the common ­Norwegian origins and heritage of the landnámsmenn throughout. Ari’s reference to his konunga ævi, despite their omission from the second text, underscores the continued interest in Norway and her kings that existed some 52

Gizurr, for instance, is said to not only have possessed all the qualities desirable in a king, he also enjoyed a similar status. See also the discussion of ‘The King of Iceland’ in Chapter 5. 53 Jonas Wellendorf, ‘Whetting the Appetite for a Vernacular Literature: The Icelandic Hungrvaka,’ in Historical Narratives, ed. Garipzanov, p. 124. 54 íf i, p. 3. 55 Turville-Petre, Origins, pp. 93–99. Halldór Hermannsson summarizes the different views on Ari’s literary output in his introductory essay to The Book of the Icelanders (Íslendingabók) by Ari Thorgilsson, ed. and trans. Halldór Hermannsson (Ithaca NY, 1930), pp. 1–46 (pp. 25–46); and ‘Ari Þorgilsson fróði,’ Skírnir, 122 (1948), 5–29.

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two hundred and fifty years after the island’s settlement.56 This material may have comprised a significant element of the first text or acted as an appendix to it and, if this was the case, suggests that Íslendingabók may have been composed either to remind the émigrés of their Norwegian past and links with Norway and/or to establish parity between the communities in Iceland and Norway. This latter aspect was to become an increasing concern, and indeed an imperative, for medieval Icelandic authors throughout the lifespan of the Commonwealth. But Íslendingabók does much more than address Iceland’s affinity with Norway, it also speaks to the relationship between the island and the Norse world, geographically, historically and mythically. Medieval Icelandic historians did not exclude mythological material from their accounts; rather it appears that different types of material all contributed to an exegesis of human experience. John Lindow has examined the mythic themes within this narrative. Employing an anthropological conceptualization of myth, he has drawn attention to the parallels between the mythologies presented by Íslendingabók and the history of the cosmos described in the Edda.57 The migration of the Norse émigrés to Iceland is similar to the account of the settlement of the Scandinavian mainland in both Ynglinga saga and Snorri’s Prologue to the Edda. These structural parallels are especially striking when framed within the context of Icelandic writing after Ari. Far from fostering an intense need or desire to write about Icelandic history, Ari’s immediate successors instead looked to Norway and commenced writing about their ancestral homeland and its kings.58 Later, when attention was again turned to Icelandic events, Ari’s scheme was not adopted; instead, Icelandic history was written in the form of the Íslendingasögur. But this does not mean that Íslendingabók had become irrelevant. The Snorra Edda, reveals that, a century and half after Ari’s composition, the structure of Íslendingabók remained culturally meaningful, and was re-tailored to the needs of preserving Norse prehistory in the thirteenth century. Based in ‘lived memory,’ Íslendingabók is a document of cultural memory (kulturelles Gedächtnis): it is a text in which a small number of named settlers are elevated above others and certain facts are selected for inclusion at the expense of others. It established and defined the core myth of origins for the Icelanders and was used as a point of reference by later authors in their 56 57 58

ÍF I, p. 3. John Lindow, ‘Íslendingabók and Myth,’ Scandinavian Studies 69, 4 (1997), 454–464. These early Norwegian-centric works include Eiríkr Oddsson’s *Hryggjarstykki and the works documenting the life of Óláfr Tryggvason by the Þingeyrar monks, Oddr Snorrason and Gunnlaugr Leifsson.

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compositions.59 This canonization of Íslendingabók ensured the establishment of its historical pre-eminence, a status that went uncontested and unchallenged by Ari’s near contemporaries and by historians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ari does not present the island’s past as a weak m ­ emory, rather it is put forward in a very matter of fact, concrete fashion.60 Norway was intrinsic to the formation of the structures of island society from the very ­beginning. In particular, the island’s early legal and constitutional ­history, together with the conversion, enjoyed Norwegian input. These elements all served to re-emphasize the Norwegian antecedents of Ari’s selected landnámsmenn, the ancestors of important Icelandic leaders, ecclesiastical and secular. Íslendingabók should thus be interpreted as the first in a series of preserved Icelandic texts in dialogue with Norway, each of which expressed a concern to establish the honourable origins of the islanders by linking them back to high-born Norwegians while concomitantly affirming and re-affirming the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway. This desire and need to be associated with honourable Norwegian origins, as we shall see, intensified over time, as the islanders sought to establish themselves as equals to their Norwegian counterparts through their narrative frameworks, each of which allowed them to reinterpret and reconstruct the circumstances behind the settlement according to their own contemporary understandings of the relationship ­between Iceland and Norway. The landnám According to the landnámabækur The preserved tradition and ideas about the landnám found in the extant Books of Settlement date from the early twelfth century when the first of these texts was originally compiled by Ari Þorgilsson and Kolskeggr Ásbjarnarson.61 All of the surviving landnámabækur, the earliest of which dates from the thirteenth century, are based on this lost twelfth-century urtext. A reading of Ari’s extant work, Íslendingabók, suggests that this lost text likely included the names of the colonists, their genealogies, place of origin and more recent familial ­relationships with other settlers. It is probable that the original Landnámabók also contained information outside the narrow focus of Ari’s history, but precisely what these details may have been is open to speculation. A reading of

59 60 61

íf xxvi, pp. 5, 7. íf i, p. 5: “es sannliga es sagt” (it is told for certain). íf i, p. 395 (H354).

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Melabók would suggest it likely included extended lineages together with the impressions of some of the island’s leading families.62 At best, then, we can surmise that the earliest settlement traditions formed an historical skeleton around which later compilers fleshed out their own accounts of the landnám. The compilation of a series of texts dedicated to documenting the island’s colonization is in itself indicative of the historical significance of this event for all Icelanders. The landnámabækur construct the social and cultural identity of the Icelanders, documenting the settlement as a project of social action. In addition to chronicling the landnám, these texts also chart the development of early Icelandic society and provide explanations for the creation of political alliances between families and regions through intermarriage, fostering and feuding in the generations after the settlement. In the small island community, individual and collective identities converged and the ­Icelandic accounts of the settlement firmly located the individual and his community within a wider sequence of spatio-temporal relationships. Norway was included within this series of relationships and each re-telling of the landnám afforded its compiler an opportunity to re-establish the island’s N ­ orwegian legacy on his own terms. These texts function as important political and social tools, revealing a distinct Icelandic attitude towards Norway, an assertion that was largely missing from Íslendingabók. The precise origins and impetus for the composition of the landnámabækur remain unclear. They may have been devised to account for landownership and to legitimize later inheritance claims, but this hypothesis does not adequately explain either the lack of genealogical information offered in some instances or the inclusion of detail superfluous to the process of making inheritance claims in others.63 An alternative motivation may have been the desire to ‘populate’ the landscape with history. Traditions about some settlements, particularly those pertaining to the island’s most powerful families in their own time, must have been familiar to the compilers of the landnámabækur. There must also have been information about original settlers within particular districts that was subsequently obscured or forgotten. In such instances the compilers were free to be inventive: traditions could be constructed, invented or moulded so that they would fit into the desired predetermined model of the

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For a discussion of Melabók, see Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. lxxxii–xci, and Jón Jóhannesson, Gerðir Landnámabókar, pp. 54–67. Chris Callow, ‘Putting Women in their Place? Gender, Landscape, and the Construction of Landnámabók,’ Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 7 (2011), p. 11. On genealogical management, see David Henige, Oral Historiography (Harlow, 1982), pp. 97–98.

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settlement.64 This model allowed for the ‘invention of tradition’: in instances where place-names existed, these were connected to personal names enjoying a phonetic or other similarity;65 in cases where gaps in the settlement record existed, farms could be promoted to the status of settlement-age farms merely by sharing a name with an original settler, while an ‘original settler’ could be fabricated from the name of an extant farm.66 The overall complexion of the landnám disseminated by the l­ andnámabækur, together with the textual relationships between these texts, suggest that they formed part of a distinct scholarly enterprise, an endeavour that may have been prompted by the needs of the ‘Icelandic intelligentsia’ of the Middle ­Ages.67 The landnámabækur not only reflect memory, they also have a memory of their own, each version inserting itself into the memory space that was once inhabited by its predecessor and, in turn, transforming those earlier memories.68 The compilers of these texts were memory specialists.69 Working as a “channel for local memories, both living and inherited,”70 they merged ‘­inherited’ memories, derived from the accumulation of a body of oral tales and historical ­traditions surrounding the individuals who made the decision to settle in Iceland and the island’s first families, with the ‘living’ memories of more recent events that spoke to their own contemporary concerns. As a result, we must accept that the information these texts contain not only underwent shifts in form, from oral to written, but that each is also the product of multiple authorship.

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Adolf Friðriksson and Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Creating a Past: A Historiography of the Settlement of Iceland,’ in Contact, Continuity, and Collapse: The Norse Colonization of the North Atlantic, ed. James H. Barrett (Turnhout, 2003), pp. 139–161. Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis,’ in Saga Íslands, i, ed. Sigurður Líndal (Reykjavik, 1974), p. 163; Helgi Þorláksson, ‘Sjö örnefni og Landnáma: um ótengd mannanöfn sem örnefni og frásagnir af sjö landnemum,’ Skírnir, 152 (1978), 114–161. Adolf Friðriksson and Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Creating a Past,’ p. 150. The authors are particularly suspicious of those accounts organized along the ‘settler X settled in Y’ template, where the settler’s name corresponds to the name of the settlement, and there is a lack of supporting genealogical information (pp. 146–147). Adolf Friðriksson and Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Creating a Past,’ p. 141. Renate Lachmann, ‘Cultural Memory and the Role of Literature,’ European Review, 12, 2 (2004), pp. 172–173. For authors and compilers, see Justin Lake, ‘Current Approaches to Medieval Historiography,’ History Compass, 13, 3 (2015), 89–109, esp. pp. 95–97. Rigney uses this expression to describe the work of Walter Scott in ‘Portable Monuments,’ p. 373.

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The structure of Landnámabók lent itself readily to change, and the adjustments made by each compiler were likely designed to be absorbed into the reconstruction of cultural memory. The distance between the ‘original generation’ and these events was so great that no current members of the group had any personal memories of those particular episodes and, consequently, could not challenge their authenticity. While the process of reworking an existing body of traditions surrounding the settlement suggests that some of the ideas captured by later compilers are more reflective of the socio-political environment of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the existence of these traditions in an oral format – and, in some instances, the existence of a number of different oral traditions about the same land-claim – points to a more nuanced hypothesis than one that prioritizes conscious manipulation on the part of later compilers, seeking to recast settlement accounts to suit a range of needs.71 This process was a more complex one. Facts may indeed have been massaged in certain instances, but the method by which each compiler selected and rejected information suggests something of their own concerns and ideology.72 The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century compilers of Landnámabók were particularly alert to the cultural utility of documenting the landnám on their own terms. One of these individuals, Sturla Þórðarson, is believed to have ­composed his version of Landnámabók towards the end of his life, sometime between 1275 and 1280, which places the work in the two decades after Iceland had submitted to the Norwegian king, Hákon Hákonarson. Sturla’s account of the landnám, and the place of Norway in that enterprise, bears the indelible impression of his own personal memories and experience of the Norwegian king. His version of Landnámabók is suggestive of his own ideological concerns and the legitimation of power. An active politician in Iceland at a time when the support of the Norwegian crown was essential to sustain and promote domestic ambitions, Sturla found himself on the wrong side of the Norwegian king for a time. His position was eventually redeemed with a royal appointment following the death of Hákon in 1263. While this royal favour ensured that Sturla himself was returned to the Norwegian inner circle, so to speak, his own family’s recent history with the Norwegian king and, in particular, the assassination of his uncle, Snorri Sturluson, in 1241, cannot but have profoundly affected his outlook and perspective on early Icelandic history and the place of his ­family in 71

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Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, argued that the material was shaped by the needs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Markmið Landnámabókar: Nýjar rannsóknir’, Skírnir, 148 (1974), 207–215, was more cautious in his assessment. Eldbjørg Haug, ‘The Icelandic Annals as Historical Sources,’ Scandinavian Journal of History, 22, 4 (1997), p. 272, expresses a similar sentiment about the Icelandic annals.

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that history.73 Compiled at a time when the legitimacy of the native aristocratic order had not only been challenged, but fundamentally altered through the intercession of an external agent, the Norwegian king, Sturla’s account of the landnám represents a distinct attitude towards Norwegian royal power and the perceived threat this posed to the native chieftains and their domains. This real and present danger was telescoped back into the past and the memories and traditions surrounding some of the original settlers. The landnámabækur describe how the settlement of Iceland occurred over three distinct phases: (1) the ‘accidental’ discovery of the island by Scandinavian voyagers; (2) more organized voyages to the island, each of which reveal additional information about its physical environment and capacity to support habitation; and (3) the settlement proper.74 These texts, despite their brief mention of the Irish papar, recount that Iceland was a land devoid of people until such time as it was byggðisk af Norðmǫnnum75 (settled by Northmen), emphatically linking the settlement to a Norwegian-led enterprise. In their treatment of individuals, the landnámabækur evince similar concerns to those of Íslendingabók. The settlers are located according to their genealogy and, where known, place of origin. A territorial sense of identity is expressed by these texts which often, but not always, name the Norwegian district where the colonists had lived, settled, had their financial interests, or from where they departed for Iceland. Norse ancestry is emphasized over all others in the preserved landnámabækur. In these texts, the vast majority of the named settlers travel to ­Iceland more or less directly from various points in Norway, notably the ­western and southwestern districts. These settlers might be described as ‘emphatically Norse’: they had not had any prolonged exposure to the customs of other peoples and brought their Norwegian norms, legal practices and customs with them to the North Atlantic island. Most of the rest were also of Norse origin but had spent extended periods of time outside of Norway prior to settling in Iceland and had travelled via the Hebrides, Britain or Ireland. Apart from the mention of Irish slaves, little reference is made by the landnámabækur to

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This aspect has been most recently broached by Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Constructing a Past,’ pp. 175–196, in which he discusses Sturla’s construction of the past in his Landnámabók with reference to those settlers to whom he attributes a royal context. This schema echoes the Norse expansion to the Faeroes: G.J. Marcus, ‘The Norse Emigration to the Faeroe Islands,’ English Historical Review, 71 (1956), p. 57. íf i, p. 31.

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named settlers of other ethnicities.76 The assignment of Norse ancestry to such a high proportion of the colonists by the compilers of the landnámabækur cannot be accepted unquestioningly, however. These designations are likely ­indicative of a desire to address the perception of Icelanders by others, particularly Norwegians, rather than any actual attempt to identify the ethnic origins of the settlers. Although the landnámabækur are at pains to link the landnám back to Norway in irrefutable terms, there is a degree of uncertainty across their accounts about who was the first Scandinavian to discover Iceland. The landnámabækur indicate that prior to the first permanent settlement, three voyages were made to the island. Sturlubók names the travellers associated with these voyages as the Viking Naddoddr, a man of Swedish extraction called Garðarr Svávarsson and Flóki Vilgerðarson.77 Each voyage provides a glimpse into the physical environment of pre-settlement Iceland: Naddoddr and his men are blown off course while setting sail to the Faeroes; Garðarr is the first man to circumnavigate the island; while Flóki is the first man to overwinter there, spending an entire summer exploring the country to his cost: as he fails to make hay to feed his livestock, his animals perish in the harsh winter. Sturlubók and Hauksbók diverge in their respective accounts of these early pioneers, with Haukr attributing to Garðarr Svávarsson the accolade of being the first Scandinavian to reach Icelandic shores.78 That divergence is a point of some significance, for there is no doubt that the title of discoverer of the island was a source of considerable pride and one which had political ramifications as well, as the person who claimed to have discovered the island had a strong claim to its ownership. Such a claim was made by Garðarr’s son, Uni, to whom Haraldr hárfagri had promised the earldom of Iceland should be he able to bring the island into the ambit of Norwegian authority.79 The account of Uni’s failed settlement and Norwegiansponsored mission must, however, be placed within the context of the series of well-established traditions that had become associated with Haraldr hárfagri. These are discussed later in this chapter, but suffice to say that by the 76

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According to the landnámabækur, non-Norse settlers amounted to a tiny proportion of the landnámsmenn. A Dane and a Swede are said to have settled, in addition to a small number from Britain and Ireland. See, for example, íf i, pp. 56 (Svartkell), 58 (Ávangr), 81 (Kalman), and 141 (Hundi). The most exotic settler seems to be Friðleifr, who was gauzkr at fǫðurkyni (a Gotlander on his father’s side) and flæmsk (Flemish) on his mother’s side (íf i, p. 242). íf i, pp. 34, 36, 38. íf i, p. 35 (H3). Naddodr’s expedition is described in the following chapter. íf i, pp. 299–302.

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thirteenth century, one of the more memorable landnám traditions concerned an attempted conquest of the island by the Norwegian king through a third party. It is of interest here that Uni’s claim was legitimized on a point of law by Haukr’s reconfiguration of the pre-settlement voyages of discovery. This adjustment may have been influenced by Icelandic–Norwegian relations in the early fourteenth century and suggest that perhaps Haukr was retrospectively accounting for Iceland’s place within the Norwegian realm, a position it occupied when Hauksbók was compiled. In a similar fashion to Ari, the compilers of the landnámabækur associate the landnám and inception of Icelandic society with Norsemen of a certain status, definitively linking this enterprise to the Norwegian petty aristocracy. A significant number of named settlers who travelled to the island, either directly or indirectly from Norway, are referred to as being ágætr (renowned, ­famous, great).80 Others are the descendants of honourable and noble families: they are göfugir menn (noble men, sng. göfugr maðr) who enjoyed the status and prestige of being hersar (lords, sng. hersir) in their own right or the sons of earls (jarlar, sng. jarl) and chieftains. To these we can likely add Ingólfr, on the basis of his Norwegian association with the sons of Earl Atli; a retainer of King Hákon called Þorgeirr hǫggvinkinni; and the herkonungr (warrior king, sea king) Geirmundr heljarskinn.81 There is also the suggestion, possibly the result of confusing settlement traditions, that a son of the Norwegian king also settled in Iceland.82 While the inclusion of such men of high status outwardly attest to the desire of the landnámabækur to connect contemporary families back to illustrious settlement-age ancestors, some moderation is required. Accounts such as the landnám of Loðmundr enn gamli, who vacates his land-claim to go elsewhere, would not have been of use to thirteenth-century landholders in Loðmundarfjörður.83 For a series of texts concerned with documenting the island’s colonization, the landnámabækur are remarkable for their silence on a number of points. Intriguingly, these texts never try to date the landnám. Clearly there was a widespread belief that this event took place between c.870 and c.930, but apart from dating the island’s discovery and settlement to the reign of Haraldr hárfagri, these texts are not concerned with identifying the precise time of arrival of the colonists. Nevertheless, their descriptions of the settlement are infused with a specific internal chronology. The claims made within 80 81 82 83

íf i, pp. 46 (descendants of Bjǫrn buna), 176 (Ǫrn), 180 (Dýri), and 196 (Þórólfr fasthaldi). íf i, pp. 40, 66, 152. íf i, p. 180. íf i, pp. 302, 304, 306.

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each Quarter of the island are recounted in clockwise configuration, giving the impression that the colonization was an organized enterprise involving many people who arrived more or less simultaneously.84 Otherwise, the landnámabækur only draw attention to the earliest, most important or, in some instances, later arrivals.85 The sequence in which an original claimant allocated land within his estate to his followers may suggest something about the timing of these individuals’ arrival to Iceland; equally, however, it is possible that this ‘ordering’ may have been determined according to thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury socio-political conditions. Perhaps most surprisingly of all is the silence exhibited by these texts on how a legitimate land-claim was made. There is no uniform land-claiming paradigm within these native accounts of the settlement and the colonists appear to have claimed land in a variety of ways, from hallowing the ground with fire or shooting arrows, to marking their claim on trees or using natural boundaries to indicate the perimeters of their settlements. This is a point of some significance, for ultimately, the landnámabækur deal with landownership. Landownership and the extent of that landownership were intrinsic to the size of a goðorð and, by extension, to the wealth and power of a chieftain. As textual witnesses to land-claims and landownership, the landnámabækur conveyed important economic and political information. Those memory specialists who were in a position to document land-holdings in a time of significant social and political upheaval could legitimize their own interests and those of their families through the selection of memories they chose to disseminate. The landnám accounts of important thirteenth-century families, ­particularly those related to significant settlement-age ancestors, should be interpreted as political statements. Sturla Þórðarson was particularly purposeful in his use of sources when collating his account of the settlement. While he drew upon the information contained in Styrmisbók, he did not hesitate to make adjustment or amendments to this version of events, interpolating material from sagas such as Eyrbyggja saga into his own redaction.86 By deliberately intervening in the historical traditions surrounding the landnám, he guaranteed that certain individuals and their deeds would not be forgotten. His account of the settlement includes a very detailed exposition of the landnám of Auðr, one of his 84 85

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Melabók is an exception, documenting the landnám in an anti-clockwise sequence. According to Sturlubók, Brǫndólfr and Már were early arrivals; later arrivals include Ísólfr, Ketill gufa, Þorbrandr and Ásbrandr. See íf i, pp. 382–383, 328, 166, 168 and 383 respectively. It is apparent that some settlers arrived when the island was albyggt. íf i, pp. 158–159, recounts how Sléttu-Bjǫrn relocated from his original land-claim because he thought Saurbœ had become over populated. Einar Ól. Sveinsson, ‘Formáli’, in ÍF IV, p. xv.

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own ancestors and a complex character, who travelled widely throughout the Norse world before settling in Iceland. Not only is Auðr connected to a formidable dynasty in thirteenth-century Iceland (the Sturlungar), her preserved genealogy reveals her consanguinity in the ninth century with an important Norwegian chieftain, Bjǫrn buna.87 The descendants of this individual are particularly important actors in the legal, political, social and spiritual history of the island and, as we shall see in Chapter 3, fuse the island’s settlement and legal mythologies into an ultimate foundation narrative. Auðr’s association with Bjǫrn buna, together with the importance some of the farms within her ­land-claim had assumed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, provides some explanation for why her claim and not that of Ingólfr Arnarson is described in the greatest detail in the landnámabækur.88 Another important figure for Sturla is the priest-chieftain, Þórólfr mostrarskeggi.89 This individual, an exemplary figure and epitome of honourable behaviour, was especially well-suited to the construction of an expanded and inflated narrative. In Sturla’s account, Þórólfr claimed – with the guidance of Þórr – a vast swathe of land where he established four culturally and politically significant sites: his farmstead, which included a temple, at Hofstaðir (temple-place); the sacred mountain he called Helgafell; the district assembly on Þórsnes; and the rock called Dritsker. Each of these sites enhances Þórólfr’s own status and collectively they establish his landnám as a privileged settlement. This status continues in the next generation, when, following the ­desecration of the original assembly site, the þing is relocated and the Quarter Court established. In essence, Sturla’s narrative describes how the Þórsnesingagoðorð came into existence. While he would have known the more recent history of this chieftaincy, his account emphasizes the cultural – both political and spiritual – significance of Þórólfr’s landnám. Not only was this land associated with the island’s early legal and institutional history, as well as the pre-Christian religion of the settlers, it was also connected to later religious developments.90 The sustained significance enjoyed by Þórólfr’s settlement enables Sturla to re-affirm the ‘value’ of this land in historical, political and spiritual terms. 87 88

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íf i, p. 46. For a discussion of Ingólfr’s land-claim, see Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Sagan um Ingólf og Hjörleif: athugasemdir um söguskoðun á seinni hluta þjóðveldisaldar,’ Skírnir, 148 (1974), 20–40. íf i, pp. 124–126. Helgafell became a religious institution in the 1180s and the Flatey monastery was later transferred to it. The religious development of this site occurred at the same time as the rise of Sturla’s grandfather, Hvamm-Sturla. It thus appears that Helgafell retained its significance in Icelandic cultural memory, even if its significance had shifted over time.

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At best the landnámabækur give an account of the Icelandic settlement that, although more extensive than that of Íslendingabók, remains selective nonetheless.91 While they omit many partakers in the landnám by virtue of their origins, ethnicity or social rank, the landnámabækur re-affirm the desire expressed by Íslendingabók to emphatically link the island’s colonization to ­Norway and Norwegian participants of a certain social status. They focus on male Norwegian settlers, who are mostly named, and make little or no reference ­ to the aged, infirm, women, children and slaves that must have accompanied these individuals.92 The colonization is thus presented as a bachelor movement organized around chieftains or local leaders of some d­ escription, men who sought to preserve and protect their social status in this new land. Collectively, these texts fix and ‘canonize’ the landnám, establishing its official history, acting as the historical authorities for the settlement episodes d­ escribed in many of the Íslendingasögur. Of the twenty-four landnám accounts contained in the forty Íslendingasögur, only three vary from those preserved in the landnámabækur.93 Of these three, the landnám described in both Kjalnesinga saga and Hrafnkels saga is similar to that contained in the landnámabækur. Only Svarfdæla saga varies significantly from the ‘official version’ of events but whether this actually ­preserves an independent tradition is a moot point.94 What is clear is that while the accounts of the landnám may have remained remarkably static 91

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In particular, these texts underestimate the proportion of those of Gaelic extraction amongst the colonists, whom genetic studies reveal to be numerous. For further see Jeff T. Williams, ‘Origin and Population Structure of the Icelanders,’ Human Biology, 65, 2 (1993), 167–191; Gísli Pálsson and Paul Rabinow, ‘Iceland: The Case of a National Human Genome Project,’ Anthropology Today, 15, 5 (1999), 14–18; and Gísli Pálsson, Anthropology and the New Genetics (Cambridge, 2007). Although Helgi and Hrollaugr are said to have travelled with their wives and children, these entries are exceptions (íf i, pp. 250, 317). Thirteen female colonists are named in their own right; the majority of founding wives are unacknowledged while the inclusion of daughters in the genealogical record is spare, even if we assume they were considered under the more general designation of children (bǫrn). For further, see Callow, ‘Putting Women in their Place?’, pp. 13–15; Carol J. Clover, ‘The Politics of Scarcity: Notes on the Sex Ratio in Early Scandinavia,’ Scandinavian Studies, 60, 2 (1988), pp. 167–168. The figure of forty is given by Vésteinn Óláson, ‘Family Sagas,’ in Companion, ed. McTurk, p. 101, and Glauser, ‘Sagas of Icelanders,’ p. 203. Jónas Kristjánsson, Eddas, p. 244, has described this saga as “one of the greatest oddities among the sagas of Icelanders,” suggesting that it is the work of more than one author and closer to a fornaldarsaga than a family saga in tenor.

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and consistent across Íslendingabók and the landnámabækur, the authors of the Íslendingasögur recognised the flexibility the Norwegian prologue to this pivotal event afforded them. This provided an opportunity for the island’s position vis-à-vis Norway to be constructed over the course of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, a period in which Iceland came under greater Norwegian influence before submitting and formally entering the Norwegian king’s realm in 1262/64. The writing of Norway into the settlement of Iceland by these authors resulted in the creation of a myth of settlement, one that underpinned the migration and legitimized early Icelandic society through its juxtaposition of a tyrannical, avaricious king and noble, honourable chieftains. The landnám According to the Norwegian National Histories Although the memory of the settlement of Iceland in the late ninth century remains overwhelmingly insular, references are made to the landnám in a number of externally produced texts. Two such mentions are found in the twelfth-century Latin Norwegian national histories known as the Historia Norwegie (hn) and Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium (ha) respectively. Prior to placing the presentation of the island’s colonization in these texts against the conceptualization of the landnám by Icelandic authors, however, it is necessary to consider the extent to which the Norwegian histories form part of an independent historiographical tradition about this event. Despite their individual and collective brevity, the Norwegian national histories have generated a vast body of scholarship, much of which has been ­dominated by the so-called ‘Norwegian synoptic problem.’ This particular Gordian knot concerns the textual relationship between Ágrip, the earliest vernacular Norwegian history, its Latin counterparts, the ha, hn, and their non-extant sources. The broad outlines of this issue are well known and do not need to be repeated here; it will therefore suffice to merely summarize these complex arguments.95 Scholars, with the notable exception of Siegfried Beyschlag,96 have considered the close correspondence between the Norwegian histories as evidence that their authors had access to a common source. 95 96

These arguments are summarized by Andersson, ‘Kings’ Sagas’, pp. 197–238, esp. pp. 201– 211. See also Driscoll, ‘Introduction,’ pp. xiii–xviii; and Foote, ‘Introduction,’ pp. xiii–xxiii. Siegfried Beyschlag, Konungasögur. Untersuchungen zur Königssaga bis Snorri: Die älteren Übersichtswerke samt Ynglingasaga (Copenhagen, 1950), pp. 247–248, contended that each history owed a common debt to oral tradition.

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The ­relationship between Ágrip and the ha is straightforward, with the former interpolating passages verbatim from the latter; both of these histories also made use of Icelandic oral sources.97 A more thorny issue concerns the Ágrip-hn connection, which scholars have explicated by referring to a common written source. Precisely what that source was, however, has generated less agreement. Svend Ellehøj argued that this source was an Icelandic one: the konunga ævi Ari had omitted from his second version of Íslendingabók;98 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, by contrast, suggested this source was in fact a lost Latin Norwegian history.99 The evidence for a common Icelandic source has become even more credible following a reconsideration of Theodoricus’s familiarity with the konunga ævi of both Ari and his predecessor, Sæmundr Sigfússon.100 This hypothesis has been broadened further by Gudrun Lange, who argues that the authors of all three of the Norwegian synoptic chronicles could plausibly have used the works of Sæmundr and Ari, as well as skaldic poetry, the original Latin text of Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar and the Oldest Saga of Saint Olaf when composing their own works.101 Her conclusion merely emphasizes the circularity of the ‘common source’ argument and the determination of the historical context of medieval Norwegian history-writing by the identification of that common source. If, as Lange asserts, medieval Norwegian history writing was highly reliant on its Icelandic counterpart, then this limits consideration of whether there was an independent late twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Norwegian historical tradition underpinned by an autonomous and now lost Norwegian source. It also suggests that the ‘memories’ of Iceland and the Icelanders preserved in these texts may actually be a Norwegian reading of Icelandic memories of those same events. Perhaps, however, we can tentatively suggest that some implicit evidence for an independent Norwegian history-writing tradition does exist. This 97

Theodoricus acknowledges his debt to his Icelandic informants in his prologue, while the author of Ágrip incorporated skaldic verse into his history. 98 Ellehøj, Studier over den ældste norrøne historieskrivning, pp. 12–13. For the verbal parallels across the synoptics, see pp. 197–276. 99 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, Om de norske kongers sagaer, (Oslo, 1937), pp. 1–54. 100 Bjarni Guðnason, ‘Theodoricus og íslenskir sagnaritarar,’ in Sjötíu ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20 júli 1977, ed. Einar G. Pétursson and Jónas Kristjánsson (Reykjavik, 1977), vol. I, pp. 107–120, argues for Theodoricus’s use of both Sæmundr and Ari. Andersson, ‘Kings’ Sagas,’ p. 210, broadens this contention to account for the commonalities across all three Norwegian histories. 101 Gudrun Lange, Die Anfänge der isländisch-norwegischen Geschichtsschreibung (Reykjavik, 1989), pp. 180–181.

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­hypothesis is derived from a reading of Ágrip, which, overall, exhibits limited interest in Iceland and the Icelanders. If the common source used by the authors of the hn and Ágrip was indeed Icelandic, then this history’s silence on the landnám is somewhat surprising. From the point of view of creating settlement myths, however, and the construction of a memorable narrative around a key figure, Ágrip is useful as it suggests antipathy towards the Norwegian ruler, which may in turn have influenced the accounts of the Norwegian prologues to the settlement contained in the Íslendingasögur, particularly that of Egils saga.102 The remainder of this chapter focusses on the accounts of the ­Icelandic landnám contained in the Norwegian histories before discussing the perpetuation of two key settlement myths, (1) the Ingólfr myth and (2) the Haraldr hárfagri myth, and the different ways in which these were presented by Icelandic and Norwegian authors. The consideration of the longevity of these myths draws together issues of memorability and the construction of cultural memory around paradigms of exemplarity. Historia Norwegie The opening geographical description of Norway and its tributary islands is indebted to the innovative model of Adam of Bremen’s Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum. The first reference to Iceland occurs in line 9 of Book i, where the author recounts how unnamed seamen had been so hampered in their attempts to sail back to Norway from Iceland that they ended up making landfall in Greenland.103 Line 11 credits the discovery, settlement and Christianization of Greenland to the Icelanders.104 The main description of Iceland occurs in Book vii, which links Iceland with Thule (ultima Tile) in a similar fashion to the ha account. The habitation of the island is dated to the reign of Haraldr hárfagri, before which time it was “unknown to mankind.”105 Prior to Haraldr’s reign the island was “a vast wilderness” but now “is inhabited by a great host of settlers.”106 Three voyages to the island, named glaciei terra,107 are described. The travellers’ names are given as Garðarr and Odd, followed by the blood-brothers Yngvar (Ingólfr) and Hjorleiv (Hjǫrleifr).108 An explorer of Swedish extraction, Garðarr, is given the accolade of being the first 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

íf xxix, pp. 28–29, 31. hn, p. 55. hn, p. 55. hn, p. 69. hn, p. 69. hn, p. 70. hn, pp. 69, 71.

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­Scandinavian to reach Iceland, while the reference to a voyage made by a traveller called Odd may be a re-telling of the voyage undertaken by the Naddoddr mentioned in the ha and the landnámabækur. The Garðarr-Odd sequence echoes Haukr Erlendsson’s version of events in Landnámabók, but where the Icelandic accounts refer to a third voyage made by Flóki Vilgerðarson prior to that undertaken by Ingólfr and Hjǫrleifr, the hn does not. The text makes no reference to any pre-existing population, however temporary or transitory, on the island prior to the arrival of the Norsemen. The hn’s assertion that the blood-brothers found Iceland “at long last” suggests that their voyage may have been perilous.109 The text implies that the settlement proceeded rapidly, stating that in some “fifty years every district was populated, in accordance with the present distribution.”110 While the period of colonization does not quite tally with Ari’s sixty years, the impression given by both the hn and Íslendingabók is that the island was populated within a reasonably short time. The landnám was defined by its temporal parameters: it had a beginning (Ingólfr) and an end. The final references to Iceland within the text reflect its concern with evangelization. Óláfr Tryggvason is credited with the conversion of the Icelanders and peripheral Norwegian islands: “he made all the tributary territories, that is, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Faeroes and ­Iceland, remarkable in their devotion, joyous in their expectations and glowing in their affection for Christ.”111 The majority of the hn’s account of Iceland, however, concerns the physical environment and marvels of the land, from volcanoes to hot-springs, ice-strewn mountain peaks to geysers, volcanoes and enchanted wells to fountains of beer.112 Historia de Antiquitate Regum Norwagiensium In the prologue to his history, Theodoricus directly and openly acknowledges his debt of gratitude to his informants, “those whom we call Icelanders,”113 for their assistance in the composition of his text. From the outset, this Norwegian historian states that the Icelanders were a learned people, interested in historical matters. That being said, it is entirely reasonable to assume that in a­ ddition to his oral sources, Theodoricus may well have also made use of ­written 109 hn, p. 71. íf i, pp. 5, 41, reveals that, prior to sailing to Iceland to re-establish himself there, Ingólfr had already made one trip to the island. This pre-settlement voyage is not mentioned in Flóamanna saga’s account of the same events in íf xiii, pp. 233–237 or the hn. 110 hn, p. 71. 111 hn, p. 95. 112 hn, p. 71. 113 ha, p. 1.

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­ aterial in his composition that he does not mention explicitly.114 Chapter 3 m of the ha reveals the ‘discoverers’ of Iceland: unnamed traders intending to sail to the Faeroe Islands were blown off course and arrived at “an exceedingly remote land, which some believe was the island of Thule.”115 Unable to confirm in irrefutable terms that this island was Thule, Theodoricus keeps his opinion to himself as to whether he believed the two islands were one and the same. His account goes on the recount how these early traders explored the island’s countryside “but found no trace at all of human habitation.”116 On their return to Norway, they spoke very highly of their discovery, their optimism prompting other voyagers to set sail for it, including Ingólfr. In what might be ­interpreted as a contradiction of the account given by the unnamed traders from the island, Theodoricus claims that “a very few people from the island of Ireland, that is Lesser Britain, are believed to have been there in ancient times because of certain pieces of evidence – namely books and several utensils of theirs which have been found.”117 This account echoes the references made to the Irish papar in the landnámabækur although Theodoricus does not refer to them by this name.118 The brief account of the Icelandic settlement in the ha comes to a close with Theodoricus’s acknowledgement that prior to Ingólfr’s voyage, other travellers had discovered the island: “The first of these was called Garðarr” and “the second was called Flóki.”119 There are a number of points of divergence between this Norwegian account of the discovery and settlement of Iceland and that of the landnámabækur. While this appears surprising, given the Icelandic informants used by Theodoricus, the degree of confusion in the minds of Icelanders about the p ­ recise sequence and number of pre-settlement voyages made to the island may s­ imply point to the existence of variant traditions. It is likely that different oral traditions about the island’s discovery had arisen and were in circulation shortly after the landnám. Absolute unanimity in the matter would be more suggestive of censorship or the deliberate fashioning of a standardized version of events. Sturlubók and Hauksbók both account for three ‘voyages of discovery’ albeit in a slightly different order. Hauksbók’s account is consistent with those of the 114 Theodore M. Andersson, ‘The Two Ages in Ágrip af Nóregs konunga sǫgum’, in Historical Narratives, ed. Garipzanov, p. 96. 115 ha, p. 6. 116 ha, p. 6. 117 ha, p. 6. 118 Theodoricus’s references to the objects abandoned by the Irish ascetics echoes that of Íslendingabók and Landnámabók, while the HN mentions the papar in connection with Orkney. For further, see ha, p. 6; ÍF I, pp. 5, 31–32; and HN, pp. 65, 67. 119 ha, p. 6.

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hn and ha in its accreditation of Garðarr as being the first Scandinavian to discover Iceland. Sturlubók and Hauksbók link Naddoddr’s expedition with a failed voyage to the Faeroe Islands. It is possible then that Theodoricus’s account of the ‘unnamed travellers’ merges elements of both the Naddoddr and Flóki voyages contained in the Icelandic landnámabækur.

Settlement Myths

It is clear that the Norwegian and Icelandic accounts of the settlement differ on several points. These variations include the number of ‘voyages of discovery’ made to the island before the settlement proper, the order in which these expeditions took place, and whether the land was inhabited prior to the arrival of the Norwegian émigrés in the latter part of the ninth century. Of interest here are the points at which the Icelandic and Norwegian histories documenting the landnám diverge in their respective presentations of two key figures – the island’s primordial settler, Ingólfr Arnarson, and the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri. ‘Settlement myths’ have been constructed and reconstructed around these individuals. Not only have these myths enjoyed a remarkable longevity, but each has been extraordinarily successful in disseminating a particular view of the past. Their success is indebted to the memory specialists behind their composition, individuals who placed key Norwegian figures at the centre of striking and powerful narratives that were culturally significant to the descendants of the landnámsmenn in the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The development of the historical traditions around Ingólfr and Haraldr suggest that the preserved memories about these individuals enjoyed a greater value-in-the-present function over others. The following discussion interrogates these myths in order to unpick the ways in which the memory of the landnám was used by medieval Iceland and Norwegian authors to establish the origins of the island community and comment on the contemporary ­relationship between the two countries. Ingólfr The compilers of the landnámabækur were acutely aware that those who had arrived first in the landnám, or, more precisely, those who were remembered as having arrived first, possessed a certain status. Not only were those who were recalled as having arrived first immortalized in a selective re-telling of the ­island’s settlement, these early arrivals also had access to the best quality land and natural resources. These individuals, then, had an opportunity to insert themselves physically and politically into an empty cultural space.

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There is ­absolute consistency across the extant landnámabækur in their desire to link the colonization of Iceland back to Norway and to one Norwegian in particular. This man, described as “the most famous of all the settlers, because he came to this country when it was still uninhabited,”120 was Ingólfr Arnarson. In their uniform presentation of Ingólfr as the island’s primordial settler, however, the landnámabækur play down an earlier tradition. This episode ­concerns Náttfari, one of the men who had accompanied Garðarr on his early voyage to Iceland. Allocated no genealogy and known only by his nickname ‘night traveller,’ this individual unwillingly became the island’s first permanent resident after his boat drifted away from Garðarr’s ship. Alone, save for a slave and a bondwoman, Náttfari has little alternative other than settle on the island.121 His woes do not end there, for the landnámabækur recount how he was subsequently ejected from his land at the insistence of a later arrival, Eyvindr, who challenged the legitimacy of his land claim, and he resettled at a place known as Náttfaravík.122 For Helgi Þorláksson, the presence of Náttfari in the landnámabækur and the opening chapter of Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu suggests that the source of this information may have been Kónall, a contemporary of Ari and Kolskeggr, the first men to write about the settlement, and that this tale was included in the oldest version of Landnámabók.123 By the fourteenth century it appears to have been a well-established tradition, for although Haukr re-orders the sequence of voyages made to the island before Ingólfr’s arrival, Náttfari is mentioned in the same context in the Garðarr episode included in the settlement accounts of Sturlubók and Hauksbók. The account of Garðarr’s voyage to the island is, as we shall see, related to a later episode that is significant for how Haraldr hárfagri was remembered by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders. If we accept that an historical tradition surrounding Náttfari may have been in circulation since the early twelfth century, and that this same tradition was considered culturally meaningful to the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century compilers of Landnámabók who incorporated it into their own accounts of the settlement, then it is likely that this figure amounts to more than a ­literary 120 íf i, p. 46. Hauksbók varies slightly in the wording of its account (p. 47). 121 íf i, p. 36. A similar statement is made in Chapter 3 of Hauksbók (p. 35). 122 íf i, pp. 276 (S247) and 277 (H211). The landnámabækur suggest that Eyvindr took Reykjadal from Náttfari and gave him land at Náttfaravík (“lét hann hafa Nattfaravík”). 123 Helgi Þorláksson, ‘Sjö örnefni,’ p. 120. Kónall and Sokki are mentioned by both Sturla and Haukr in their respective versions of Landnámabók. For further, see íf i, pp. 276–279. For an account of Náttfari’s landnám in Reykdæla saga ok Víga-Skútu, see íf x, p. 151.

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motif. If his presence in the textual record was simply a means to account for the naming of Náttfaravík, it would have been easier to remove all trace of him from the Garðarr episode and introduce a later character called “Náttfari who settled at Náttfaravík,” the standard formula used in so many chapters of the landnámabækur. As the record stands, however, Sturlubók gives two different accounts at different points accounting for this one land-claim.124 The uncertainty exhibited by Sturlubók when it comes to Náttfari and his landnám suggests that this individual did not fit into how the island’s settlement was conceived, either structurally or ideologically, by the compilers of the landnámabækur. Náttfari continues to pose problems. He is given no ethnic designation by the landnámabækur. Njörður Njarðvík argued that Náttfari was an East Norse name.125 Helgi Þorláksson noted that Náttfari existed as a personal name, but only on Swedish runestones; Náttfari, it will be recalled, had accompanied Garðarr, whom the landnámabækur describe as sœnskr at ætt, to Iceland.126 More recently, however, Przemysław Urbańczyk suggested that Náttfari may have been a Slav.127 He suggests that, following his circumnavigation of the island, Garðarr returned to his home and passed on the information as to the location of this uninhabited island to Baltic Slavs, who then travelled to Iceland themselves, settling there in sunken houses similar to those excavated at Sveigakot.128 None of the settlement accounts, Icelandic or Norwegian, make any reference to a Slav settlement or the participation of Slavs in the landnám. If Náttfari is sidelined and the papar given a terse treatment, another precise contemporary of Ingólfr’s also makes a rapid exit from the settlement record, albeit for slightly different reasons. According to the accounts of the landnámabækur, Ingólfr’s blood-brother, Hjǫrleifr, who had accompanied Ingólfr to Iceland, fails to sacrifice to the gods and is slain by his slaves.129 The removal of the papar and Náttfari from the textual witnesses to the landnám serve to rid the land of any pre-Norse and, more specifically, any pre-Ingólfr presence; the swift departure of Hjǫrleifr, meanwhile, isolates Ingólfr in the historical 124 íf i, pp. 36, 276. 125 Njörður P. Njarðvík, Birth of a Nation: The Story of the Icelandic Commonwealth, trans. John Porter (Reykjavik, 1978), p. 15. 126 íf i, p. 34; Helgi Þorláksson, ‘Sjö örnefni,’ p. 120. 127 Przemysław Urbańczyck, ‘Ethnic Aspects of the Settlement of Iceland,’ Collegium Medievale, 15 (2002), 155–165. 128 Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Ethnicity and Class in Settlement-Period Iceland,’ in The Viking Age, eds Sheehan and Ó Corráin, pp. 494–510, discusses the excavations at Sveigakot and considers their ethnic implications (pp. 505–506). 129 íf i, pp. 42–44.

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record, leaving him in an otherwise empty land. The island is thus established as a blank canvas upon which the compilers of the landnámabækur were able to re-cast the history of the island’s society. This prompts questions as to the manner in which the history of the Icelandic settlement was actively managed by early Icelandic authors and the ways in which they attempted to resolve or, indeed, address identities that did not fit into their desired model. This model was formed by two preoccupations: firstly, the desire to attribute the settlement to a Scandinavian and, more specifically, a Norwegian enterprise, and, secondly, the need to acquire a suitably prestigious Norwegian settler to serve as a figurehead for the island’s colonization. These two elements find expression in the preserved historical traditions surrounding Ingólfr Arnarson. Rather than link the island society back to an individual lacking a proper name, a point of origin and a genealogy or status of any kind, the landnámabækur contrive to present the first settler as an honourable Norwegian and relation of the legendary hero Hrómundr Gripsson.130 The deeds of this colourful character appear to have been well known and were recounted in the lost twelfth-century *Hrómundar saga. It is worth giving *Hrómundar saga some consideration, for its form and subject matter may influence an evaluation of the presentation of Ingólfr by the landnámabækur and his mythic status. One of the sagas contained in the Sturlunga compilation, Þorgils saga ok Hafliða, describes the marriage between Óláfr and Helga at Reykjahólar in 1119 and the entertainment afforded to the guests at this celebration.131 The festivities lasted for seven nights and men became talkative and recounted stories. One of the storytellers was Hrólfr from Skálmarnes who recounted a tale, including verses, about Hrǫngviðr the Viking and Óláfr ­liðsmannakonungr, the mound-breaking of Þráinn and Hrómundr Gripsson. Hrólfr is described not only as the teller of the tale, but as its author too: the story was samansetta (set together) by him. Precisely what details were included (or omitted) in Hrólfr’s own version of Hrómundr’s exploits are not known 130 íf i, pp. 38, 40. Both Egils saga and the Sturlubók version of Landnámabók give Ingólfr’s patronymic as Arnarson, from his father, Örn; but the genealogy in Þórðarbók, likely derived from Melabók, gives his father’s name as Björnólfr. It may be that Örn, in this instance, is an abbreviated form of Björnolf but the patronymic which has become associated with Ingólfr in all the documentary sources referring to him is Arnarson and not Björnólfsson. Another point of genealogical divergence concerns whether the Helgi married to Ingólfr’s mother was a son or grandson of the legendary Norwegian chieftain Bjǫrn buna. See Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. lxxi–lxxiv. 131 Sturlunga saga, i, pp. 16–20. For a full discussion of this episode see Foote, ‘Sagnaskemtan: Reykjahólar 1119,’ pp. 226–239.

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nor does the passage give any sense of the knowledge his audience may have had of these events themselves. The reaction of King Sverrir to these tales is important: the king declared that such lygisǫgur or “lying stories” were skemtilegastar, “most amusing.” This expression did not have negative connotations for him.132 The text indicates that “men could even trace their genealogies to Hrómundr Gripsson”133 and that “many wise men believed these sagas were true.”134 The story was appreciated for its entertainment and the values it conveyed. It was culturally meaningful, particularly for those who claimed consanguinity with this Norwegian hero. Importantly, the value attributed to the tale of Hrómundr’s exploits is derived from the favour of the king, suggesting that the praise of the Norwegian monarch was a very valuable cultural commodity in twelfth-century Iceland. This particular king, it should be added, was no stranger to the benefits of genealogical manipulation: his own claim to the Norwegian throne was likely fabricated.135 Ingólfr, then, is associated with the mythical hero Hrómundr Gripsson, an illustrious individual whose exploits were sufficiently entertaining to regale an assembled audience at a wedding celebration and to amuse a Norwegian king. The fact that Hrómundr’s deeds were recounted in the early decades of the twelfth century, two and a half centuries after the landnám, suggest that the traditions of Hrómundr and Ingólfr may have been linked at an early stage. The nuptial celebrations at which his tale was told are dated to 1119 and fall within the pivotal period in early Icelandic writing that took place between 1117 and 1133. If Ingólfr and Hrómundr were linked in this formative phase, then their association should be read as another element within the programmatic enterprise undertaken by the island’s educated and ecclesiastical elite to ­document the island’s early history. It also speaks to the desire (and urgency) of the ­landnámabækur to identify a suitably well-connected and honourable founding father for the Icelanders. This dovetails neatly with the most basic chronological concerns expressed by the native accounts of the settlement:

132 This expression also occurs in Jómsvíkinga saga preserved in the Flateyjarbók version of Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta, but in this instance points to a fabricated account of events. Flb i, p. 184. This episode also emphasizes the skemmtun or entertaining function of these narratives. For a discussion of these types of tales, see Matthew J. Driscoll, ‘Late Prose Fiction (lýgisögur),’ in Companion, ed. McTurk, pp. 190–204. 133 Sturlunga saga, i, p. 19. 134 Sturlunga saga, i, p. 20. 135 Bibire, ‘Icelandic Sagas,’ p. 8.

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their desire to identify the commencement of the island’s permanent inhabitation with the settlement of Ingólfr. Ingólfr was a more ‘mythogenic’ figure than Náttfari. The success of some figures over others in mythogenesis is connected with their perceived ‘fit’ with a commonly held stereotype.136 This ‘fit’ fixes the individual within popular imagination and prompts the dissemination of (initially oral) traditions about them.137 Grounded in the narrative skill of individuals such as Sturla and Haukr, the representation of Ingólfr’s landnám is ‘true to meaning.’ Not only did these memory specialists situate Ingólfr at the centre of an intelligible and culturally significant story, they generated an engaging and memorable narrative that made meaningful statements about the early Icelandic past. The landnámabækur present Ingólfr Arnarson in a distinct way, emphasizing him as an exemplar, a paragon of Old Norse society. As the descendant of a legendary Norwegian hero, he is well-born; he engages in Viking expeditions as a raider; he is an adherent of an honour code that results in his expulsion from Norway; he is an observant pagan, sacrificing to the gods so that they might divinely ordain his fate; he is a self-made man of means, sailing for Iceland on his own ship manned by his own slaves. Ingólfr is endowed with heroic and noble attributes and despite losing everything in Norway – land, status and honour – he re-establishes himself by virtue of his landnám in Iceland. While neither the character of Ingólfr nor his illustrious grandfather would be out of place in the heroic fornaldarsögur, the description of his settlement is infused with references to geography, topographical features, named places and sites that infuse it with an air of verisimilitude and authenticity. But the expanded narrative constructed by Sturla Þórðarson around Ingólfr in the thirteenth century, which was included by Haukr in his account of the settlement, also functions as a mythic narrative. The account of his landnám has a founding function – it describes how the community around Kjalarnes was established – while the genealogical links between Ingólfr and his descendants, including his son and grandson, both of whom were instrumental in the island’s early legal history, serve to connect the past to the present, endowing the account of his landnám with an extra vestige of cultural stability. Meanwhile, what Assmann calls the ‘contra-present’ aspect of mythic narratives is evident in the place names – the site that er nú heitir (is now called) Ingólfshǫfði;138

136 I suggest that Ingólfr’s ‘fit’ was set against perceptions of the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri, discussed later in this chapter. 137 Burke, ‘History,’ p. 104. 138 íf i, p. 42 (S8).

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þar sem nú heitir (that is now called) Minnþakseyrr;139 − and in the compilers’ awareness of the temporal divide between past and present.140 The brief inclusion of Hjǫrleifr adds another dimension. It suggests that the Ingólfr myth was constructed around a sense of piety and the conceptualization of the ‘noble heathen.’141 Ingólfr is a model of pagan observance in contrast to Hjǫrleifr.142 Ingólfr’s eminent status is based on his perceived position at the head of a column of incoming migrants and rooted in the kin alliances he establishes within his landnám. It is this last constellation of relationships that truly elevates Ingólfr’s land-claim to that of a privileged settlement, a settlement that includes an assembly at Kjalarnes and an early church at Esjuberg. The location of these institutions within Ingólfr’s landnám are facilitated by his connection to another important family, that of the Norwegian hersir (pl. hersar, chieftain or lord) Bjǫrn buna.143 This association is actively cultivated by Ingólfr, who gifts land to a number of Bjǫrn’s grandchildren, important individuals in their own right, in order to create a consolidated proto-elite kin group. Within the landnámabækur’s account of this one land-claim, early Icelandic legal, political and institutional developments merge while the pre-Christian and Christian histories of Iceland sit comfortably alongside each other. The charisma and authority of Ingólfr are divinely endowed; not only do they allow Ingólfr to exert control over his settlement, they are then transferred to his descendants and the institutions they found. This last point is especially relevant to the discussion of the island’s legal mythology in the following chapter. According to the preserved testimonies of the landnámabækur, then, Ingólfr Arnarson was a man of whom Icelanders and Norwegians alike could be proud. At least, one might assume that the Norwegians would be proud to claim this ultimate Viking as one of their own. However, although the landnámabækur describe him as a man of honour and status, the hn claims that Ingólfr was forced to abandon his Norwegian homeland because he was 139 íf i, p. 43 (S8). 140 For instance, the description of the material remains of Hjǫrleifr’s farm-houses: “Hjǫrleifr lét þar gera skála tvá, ok er ǫnnur tóptin átján faðma, en ǫnnur nítján.” (íf i, p. 43) Another example concerns Ingólfr’s high-seat pillars which “þar eru enn ǫndugissúlur þær í eldhúsi.” (íf i, p. 45) 141 Lars Lönnroth, ‘The Noble Heathen: A Theme in the Sagas,’ Scandinavian Studies, 41, 1 (1969), 1–29. Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Sagan um Ingólf og Hjörleif,’ pp. 20–40, considers the story of Ingólfr and Hjǫrleifr to function as model of good and ill fortune. 142 íf i, p. 44: Ingólfr’s sanguine remark, that these things happen to those who don’t sacrifice (“ok sé ek svá hverjum verða, ef eigi vill blóta”), establishes a paradigm of cultic behaviour. 143 Members of this kin group, including Helgi bjóla, Örlygr Hrappsson and Þórðr skeggi are discussed within the context of the island’s early law and institutions in the next chapter.

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­“accused of murders”.144 He and his blood-brother, Hjǫrleifr, were forced to leave their homes and, accompanied by their families, sailed for Iceland. The­ ­­landnámabækur, by contrast, make no direct mention of the criminal charges levelled against the men; rather they refer to a settlement being negotiated, following which Ingólfr and Hjǫrleifr’s possessions were confiscated.145 While there is no absolute statement to the effect that the men were outlawed, Flóamanna saga fills in the gaps in the record.146 The tone of the hn indicates that by the twelfth century the Icelandic ruling class and their identity were being challenged and questioned by Norwegians and that such accusations necessitated a firm Icelandic rebuttal. One must wonder if the author of the hn moulded the Norwegian perception of the Icelanders as a lawless rabble descended af þrælum eða illmennum (from slaves or criminals, literally ‘bad men’), charges which Styrmir Kárason firmly refuted in the strongly-worded epilogue to his Landnámabók.147 That Sturla Þórðarson felt the need to construct a memorable and expanded narrative around the man heralded as the island’s founding father in the late thirteenth century is suggestive of the durability of those particular Norwegian perceptions. An interesting parallel to the hn’s account of Ingólfr and Hjǫrleifr is found in Sturlubók’s account of Eiríkr rauði, who settled Greenland. The text recounts how Eiríkr and his father Þorvaldr were forced to flee from Jæren in­­Norway “on account of some slayings” for which they may have been outlawed.148 The later discovery and settlement of Greenland by Eiríkr has been treated as an Icelandic, as opposed to a Norwegian, enterprise by Icelandic authors. The readiness of these writers to claim Eiríkr as an Icelander may be traced back

144 hn, p. 69. Moreover, there was a family tradition of criminality: íf i, pp. 38, 40, 41. Hrómundr Gripsson’s sons, Bjǫrnólfr and Hróaldr, were the respective grandfathers of Ingólfr and Leifr. Bjǫrnólfr and Hróaldr left their home in Telemark “on account of some slayings” to settle in Dalsfjord. Ingólfr and Leifr’s subsequent departure for Iceland follows the pattern set by their ancestors. 145 íf i, p. 41 (SH6). 146 íf xiii, pp. 236–237, describes how Hallsteinn judged that, in addition to the confiscation of their properties, the blood-brothers had to leave present-day Fjordane (Firðafylki) “before three winters have passed otherwise you shall fall outside the law.” The saga’s references to a departure within three years after which the blood-brothers assumed óhelgir status indicates a sentence of outlawry. 147 íf i, 336; Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli’, p. cii. 148 íf i, p. 130; íf iv, p. 197. Neither text is explicit on the matter.

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to his ­ejection from Norway, the implication being that his outlawry abrogated whatever sense of Norwegian identification he or Þorvaldr may have enjoyed up until this time.149 One could think of their status as Norwegians, or subjects of the Norwegian king, as figuratively and literally invalidated and, since Eiríkr was largely raised in Iceland, he could be claimed as an Icelander. The hn’s account of the departure of Ingólfr and Hjǫrleifr from Norway, again for ‘some killings,’ resembles the treatment of Eiríkr. While there is no explicit mention of Ingólfr being outlawed, it seems likely that this was the reason for his move overseas. Thus Ingólfr’s status as subject to a Norwegian king, his membership of the Norwegian res publica or polity, so to speak, has also been reneged prior to his arrival in Iceland. One must wonder, then, if this is the reason why the Norwegian histories do not claim him as one of their own in the same emphatic manner as the landnámabækur, rather than any misgivings they may have had as to his character and honour. Theodoricus’s treatment of Ingólfr is more in tune with that of the landnámabækur. To what extent this is down to his use of Icelandic informants is unclear. While the compilers of the landnámabækur expose the genealogical link between Ingólfr and Hrómundr Gripsson,150 they do not give any statement as to Hrómundr’s status, perhaps simply because the story of Ingólfr’s legendary ancestor and his exploits was common knowledge. Theodoricus, on the other hand, gives no genealogy for Ingólfr yet describes him as being “a man of noble blood.”151 Despite their overt desire to claim this individual as the island’s first permanent settler, none of the landnámabækur describes Ingólfr in this fashion. His nobility appears to be referred to implicitly through the inclusion of his genealogy as opposed to the more explicit approach taken by Theodoricus. But Theodoricus’s treatment of Ingólfr does diverge from the Icelandic settlement accounts. While the landnámabækur present the story of Ingólfr’s landnám in such a way as to make it appear as if he, his blood-brother Hjǫrleifr and the slaves who accompanied them were the island’s only colonists for some time, Theodoricus indicates that there were other participants in this enterprise at an early stage. The positive reports about Iceland, which were widely disseminated by traders returning to Norway, “emboldened many others to go in search” of the island.152 This initial indication that a sizable number of people departed Norway for Iceland at an early juncture is emphasized by 149 150 151 152

Vilhjálmur Stefánsson, ‘Icelandic Independence,’ Foreign Affairs 7, 1 (1928), pp. 277–278. íf i, pp. 38, 40. ha, p. 6. ha, p. 6.

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Theodoricus, who writes that “prominent among these was a man [...] by the name of Ingólfr, from the province which is called Hǫrðaland”153 Ingólfr, then, was merely one of many individuals who arrived at the island almost simultaneously; he was not at the head of a column of Norwegian migrants as the landnámabækur appear to claim. Ingólfr assumed a special, and culturally meaningful, significance for the Icelanders. The decision made by the compilers of the landnámabækur to offer a selective account of his settlement, one in which he sacrifices to the gods to discover where his future lay before being accompanied by a non-observant blood-brother subsequently slain by his Irish slaves, is a deliberate one which allows Ingólfr, who is characterized as an exemplar, to assume the mantle of the island’s first permanent settler. His consanguinity with Hrómundr Gripsson establishes his noble Norwegian lineage and credentials as Iceland’s founding father. The account of his landnám in the landnámabækur may be incorrect only on the basis of the details it chooses to omit, as opposed to any degree of purposeful historical fabrication on the part of their compilers. Although the Norwegian histories link the settlement of Iceland back to Norway, Ingólfr is neither seen as having led the settlement nor as an especially honourable founding father. While little interest is expressed in pursuing a claim to the island, it is clear that the relationship between the two countries had shifted by the late twelfth century when the author of the hn appended his description of Iceland to his account of Norway’s tributary islands. This author clearly believed the island to be rightfully located within the Norwegian realm. Yet he asserts no Norwegian claim; rather he opts to emphasize the distance – geographical, environmental and, in the case of Ingólfr, ethical – that existed between Norway and Iceland. Haraldr hárfagri Ingólfr is not the only person whose treatment differs in the various accounts of the landnám. Another contested individual is the Norwegian king, Haraldr hárfagri. Icelandic descriptions of the landnám reveal that memories of Haraldr hárfagri were not static but fluctuated over time. This shift in attitude, which took place between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, is suggestive of a corresponding shift in Icelandic attitudes towards Norway and, in particular, the ominous ever-present figure of a distant king who had the potential to threaten unwanted intervention in the island’s domestic affairs. The portrayal of Haraldr acts as a binary opposite to that of Ingólfr. While the latter is ­heralded as a paradigm of exemplarity around which a suitable founding 153 ha, p. 6.

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father narrative is constructed, the former acts as a substandard model for men to reject. Before discussing the way in which Haraldr was remembered in Icelandic accounts of the landnám, it is important to address the view that he was responsible for the ninth-century unification of Norway and the foundation of a royal dynasty. The contention that he was the king responsible for unifying the land’s petty kingdoms into a single unit remained largely unchallenged until the last century.154 Apart from twelfth- and thirteenth-century sources, many of which were written in the form of royal biographies, there is little independent evidence for the unification of Norway under his aegis. These sources seem to cast Haraldr as a semi-historical character at best. Ohthere’s ninthcentury account makes no reference to a king or supreme authority while his Norðweg does not appear to have been a united political space at this time.155 Furthermore, Ohthere does not even refer to Haraldr or his ambitions. This is surprising as, according to later saga tradition, Haraldr’s son was fostered by the English king, Æthelstan, which would suggest that he was a magnate of some status.156 William of Malmesbury, for his part, does indicate that there was a ninthcentury ruler of Norway called ‘Harold’ who sent gifts, including “a ship with a golden beak and a purple sail” to the English king, Æthelstan (924–939).157 Haraldr hárfagri’s reign is believed to have taken place between c.872 and 930 and William’s testimony places a king of this name as an early tenth-century ruler of Norway. His unfamiliarity with Haraldr hárfagri is, however, revealed later in his text when William confused the ninth- and early tenth-century king with his eleventh-century namesake, Haraldr harðráði.158 What we might interpret as William’s confusion, however, may be due to the fact that hárfagri was an epithet originally intended for Haraldr Sigurðarson but the usage of which became associated with the earlier Haraldr in the twelfth century.159 154 For example, Claus Krag, ‘The Early Unification of Norway,’ in Cambridge History, ed. Helle, pp. 184–201. 155 Ohthere, pp. 44–47. 156 íf xxvi, pp. 144–146; ha, p. 5. 157 William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Earliest Period to the Reign of King Stephen, ed. and trans. J.A. Giles (London, 1866), p. 134. 158 William of Malmesbury, Chronicle, pp. 256–257. 159 Judith Jesch, ‘Norse Historical Traditions and the Historia Gruffudd vab Kenan: Magnús berfœttr and Haraldr hárfagri,’ in Gruffudd ap Cynan: A Collaborative Biography, ed. K.L. Maund (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 117–147. Jesch notes that there are no demonstratively early attributes of ‘hárfagri’ to Haraldr Hálfdanarson. The only near contemporary u ­ sage occurs in Þorbjǫrn hornklogi’s Haraldskvæði, which has been preserved in Fagrskinna and

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The literary evidence, then, attributing the epithet hárfagri to a Norwegian king is non-Scandinavian, and makes no mention of a king bearing this moniker prior to the eleventh century in any source that can be dated with certainty. Indeed the earliest source that associates the nickname with the ninth-century ‘King of Norway’ is Ari’s Íslendingabók.160 Supplementary information, though still inconclusive, comes from the Irish annals, which indicate that those Scandinavians who had based themselves in Ireland needed to seek out new homes in the latter part of the ninth century, due in part to the arrival of Danish raiders who were determined to oust their Norwegian counterparts from Dublin and elsewhere. A number of entries in the annals give a few specific references to a Norwegian polity, referred to as Laithlinn, that was ruled by a king and had royal representatives in Ireland in 848 and 853, suggesting that at least one Norwegian region had obtained political consolidation by the mid-ninth century.161 Whether we can connect this king and his politics to either Haraldr hárfagri or the initial raids on Ireland, which derived from western Norway or, indeed, the later onward movement of Scandinavian settlers from Ireland is, however, speculative. In their efforts to identify rí Laithlinne, scholars have examined the traditions surrounding the unification of Norway. Both Peter Sawyer and Claus Krag have rejected the Vestfold-Yngling literary tradition of Norwegian unification under Haraldr; rather they contend that this particularly myth results from a superimposition of Haraldr’s more localized interests on national historiography.162 In part this may be attributed to the status of the Hlaðir jarlar, supporters of Haraldr and then only in one of the two manuscripts of that text. For an overview of the usage of hárfagri in non-Scandinavian histories describing Haraldr Sigurðarson, see Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas, p. 68. 160 ÍF I, 3; Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Erindringen om en mægtig Personlighed. Den norsk-islandske historiske tradisjon om Harald Hårfagre i et kildekritisk perspektiv,’ Historisk tidsskrift (Norway), 81 (2002), p. 218. 161 Colmán Etchingham, ‘Laithlinn “Fair Foreigners” and “Dark Foreigners”: The Identity and Provenance of Vikings in Ninth-Century Ireland’, in The Viking Age, eds Sheehan and Ó Corráin, pp. 80–88. Etchingham suggests that Vestfold/western Norway may have been Laithlinn (p. 83). 162 Peter Sawyer, ‘The Background of Ynglingasaga,’ in Kongsmenn og krossmenn: Festkrift til Grethe Authén Blom, ed. Steinar Supphellen (Trondheim, 1992), pp. 271–275; Sawyer, ‘Harald Fairhair and the British Isles,’ in Les Vikings et leur civilisation: problèmes actuels, ed. Régis Boyer (Paris, 1976), pp. 105–109; Claus Krag, ‘Norge som odel i Haralds Hårfagres ættt,’ Historisk tidsskrift (Norway), 68 (1989), 288–302; and Krag, Ynglingatal og Ynglingesaga: En studie i historiske kilder (Oslo, 1991). A summary of their arguments can be found in Donnchadh Ó Corráin, ‘The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century,’ Peritia, 12 (1998), 296–339.

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related through female lines of descent. They were based in the Trøndelag and, according to skaldic poetry and saga narratives, were the de facto rulers of late tenth- and early eleventh-century Norway, particularly in the years 965–995 and 1000–1015. Notwithstanding these difficulties, by the twelfth century a lively literary tradition surrounding the figure of Haraldr hárfagri had developed in Iceland and Norway. In the prologue to Íslendingabók, Ari explicitly states that Haraldr was “einn konungr at ǫllum Norvegi”163 (sole king over all Norway), while similar statements are also expressed in the landnámabækur.164 Two of the Norwegian histories, the ha and Ágrip, also connect Haraldr’s rule to a time of aggressive expansion following which he assumed control over the whole kingdom.165 These traditions are unlikely to have emerged as isolated, literary fictions and should probably be read as expressions of the political and ideological struggles in contemporary Norway. That is to say, they probably reflect the political agenda that obtained following the death of Magnús berfœttr in 1103, when a number of pretenders to the Norwegian throne launched their respective claims to it.166 The chief justification for those claimants was descent in the male line from Haraldr hárfagri; their claims to rule were thus based on symbolic capital: Haraldr’s blood. The tradition of Haraldr as the ‘founder of Norway’ was more than likely fashioned against this background in order to legitimize claims to the throne. This was done by the retrospective construction of a genealogy for Haraldr and, by extension, a royal dynasty, that could be traced from this ninth-century monarch to the evangelizing kings, Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Haraldsson, of the late tenth and eleventh 163 íf i, 3. 164 íf i, pp. 32 (S2), 33 (H2). Haraldr is described as konungr yfir Nóregi. Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas, p. 42 (fn. 51) comments that the tradition of Haraldr as ruler of all Norway may originate with Ari. It is, however, important to note that Ari never states that Haraldr was responsible for the unification of the kingdom, an idea expressed in the later sagas. Of the fifteen preserved Íslendingasögur that describe events reputed to have occurred during Haraldr’s reign, ten refer to the unification of Norway and link the consolidation of the Norwegian realm and the landnám. 165 ha, p. 5; íf xxix, p. 4. The hn, p. 81, reports that while Haraldr gained control over “the whole seaboard; the mountain region was still ruled by petty kings, seemingly governing under his lordship.” This is the only Norwegian source limiting Haraldr’s rule. 166 Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, ‘English Models for King Harald Fairhair?’, in The Fantastic in Old Norse/Icelandic Literature: Sagas and the British Isles. Preprint Papers of the Thirteenth International Saga Conference, eds John McKinnell, David Ashurst and Donata Kick (Durham, 2006), vol. I, pp. 359–364. See also Krag, ‘Norge som odel i Harald Hårfagres ættt,’ pp. 288–302, which argues that the Fairhair dynasty was a later scholarly construct.

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centuries.167 Haraldr’s fabricated line of descent to Óðinn, preserved in Ynglingatal, a composition by the early tenth-century skald Þjóðólfr, became a prominent ­element in the traditions of Norwegian kings, notably the two Óláfrs, men who had ‘inherited’ the kingdom of Norway from Haraldr, and more broadly in Norse historiography as a whole. It is probable that there may have been a kernel of historical fact in the designation of Haraldr as ‘King of Norway’ and that this tenuous correspondence became rapidly transformed into a legendary tradition that was retrospectively legitimized via a learned genealogical construction.168 But while we may question Haraldr’s existence and achievement, the memory of this Norwegian king was very real to medieval Icelanders. A range of different attitudes to Haraldr was displayed by Icelandic historiographers between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Each of these individuals, it should be stressed, was very much influenced by his own conception of the contemporary relationship between Iceland and Norway. Haraldr is noticeably absent from Ari’s early twelfth-century history, Íslendingabók. Apart from his genealogy, which establishes Haraldr’s status as king over Norway,169 he merits only the briefest of mentions in Chapter 1. The first two date Ingólfr’s first trip and the landnám to his reign, the third connects him with the landaurar.170 These laconic references, as we shall see, do not correspond to Haraldr’s treatment in either the preserved landnámabækur or a number of the Íslendingasögur. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson has suggested that Ari’s handling of Haraldr may have been indicative of his desire to play down or repudiate the negative tone of the earliest Landnámabók, which may have contained references to Haraldr’s tyranny.171 If this hypothesis is accepted, it suggests that negative attitudes towards the Norwegian king had developed and were in circulation before the twelfth century. This assertion is impossible to prove simply because the text on which Sveinbjörn Rafnsson’s contention is based is lost. His theory does lend support, however, to a key contention of the present study: that Ari’s aim was to establish the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway and articulate it in a specific way.

167 if xxix, pp. 57–58; íf xxvi, pp. 90–91. Both Fagrskinna and Heimskringla legitimize Haraldr’s rule through Hálfdan svarti’s dream, which connects Haraldr to Óláfr Haraldsson via a fabricated genealogy. 168 Krag, Ynglingatal og Ynglingesaga, pp. 211–239. 169 íf i, p. 3. 170 íf i, pp. 4–6. 171 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 207–208.

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Over time, Ari’s achromatic tone is replaced by the desire to offer a specific explanation for why so many noble Norwegians departed their homeland. This shift parallels the desire of the Icelandic goðar to immortalize the Norwegian past of their ancestors and, by extension, legitimize their own position. This need was twofold: firstly, these individuals wished to establish their right to rule, particularly as the number of native chieftaincies were being dramatically reduced as the result of internal competition and power struggles, both of which resulted in the concentration of power in the hands of the few and the concomitant creation of larger territorial units. Secondly, as the Norwegian king was beginning to pay closer attention to events in Iceland, particularly after disputing merchants allegedly forced him to declare his intention to invade the island, the desire for suitable Norwegian antecedents became an i­mperative. But these origins, an increasingly important form of symbolic capital, had to be of a particular type: they also had to correspond with the Icelanders’ self-perception of the island community as founded by highborn, independent men who were unfettered by the ties of royal obedience. By the thirteenth century, the negative characterization of the Norwegian monarch appears to have become well established. By creating a literary motif that connected the Norwegian king with the confiscation of land and ­denial of ancestral inheritance rights or óðal,172 a new construction of the early Icelandic past was generated. It enabled Icelandic authors to frame the overseas migration and settlement as the only honourable outcome of a clash that had taken place between the traditional and emerging new order in Norway. Ofríki Haralds – the tyranny of Haraldr hárfagri – was frequently cited as the reason why so many men left their ancestral homeland.173 The most extensive and evocative account of hostility towards the king can be found in the thirteenth-century Egils saga, while the accounts of the landnám in Melabók and Sturlubók also express similar attitudes towards the king.174 All of these 172 Óðal was the family’s right of possession to allodial land through inheritance. It did not merely refer to land or tangible possessions but was imbued with an intense emotional component and could be variously interpreted as ‘birth place,’ ‘patrimony,’ ‘fatherland.’ For further, see Aaron Ya. Gurevich, ‘Wealth and Gift-Bestowal Among the Ancient Scandinavians’, Scandinavica, 7 (1968), 126–138; and ‘Semantics of the Medieval Community: “Farmstead”, “Land”, “World” (Scandinavian Example)’, Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin, 44 (1987), 525–540, by the same author. 173 The noun ofríki is variously defined as ‘overbearing,’ ‘tyranny’ and ‘sheer force’ and is often used in connection with an individual considered to be wanton and morally bankrupt. Cleasby-Vigfússon, p. 464. 174 It is possible that the account of ofríki Haralds in Egils saga may have been modelled on Ágrip’s description of the reign of Sveinn Alfífuson. This connection is even more striking

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texts disapprove of royal power and, in particular, the expansion of that power through the confiscation of land, hereditary titles and enforced submission.175 This, then, was the manner in which Haraldr was remembered by thirteenthcentury Icelandic historiographers.176 Yet despite these particular criticisms, Haraldr’s treatment across the Icelandic accounts of the landnám remains inconsistent. While the defeats s­ uffered by men such as Hallvarðr súgandi177 at the Battle of Hafrsfjord178 and fear of royal oppression may have provided an incentive to leave Norway, not all the landnámsmenn were similarly motivated. Some, like Ingimundr and Hrollaugr Rǫgnvaldsson, even managed to maintain positive and reciprocal relationships with him.179 The expression ofríki Haralds is used only in connection with the minority of settlers and even then its attribution is inconsistent. This is particularly apparent in Sturla’s account of Þórólfr mostrarskeggi’s landnám, for although he attributes Þórólfr mostrarskeggi’s departure from Norway to “fyrir ofríki Haralds konungs hárfagra,”180 Sturla does not expand on the reason why Þórólfr had incurred the wrath of the king. Eyrbyggja saga reveals that it was because Þórólfr had harboured an outlaw and enemy of Haraldr, Bjǫrn Ketilsson.181 This latter point is significant because throughout his Landnámabók Sturla is at pains to connect the departure of other highborn men (to whom he is related) to the tyranny of the Norwegian king yet explicitly does so in a way that states their conflict with royal authority was based on a just cause.182

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if Egils saga belongs to the oldest group of preserved sagas, the skald sagas, which were composed between c.1200–1230. For further see Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘The Skald Sagas’, pp. 25–49 (p. 40). Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 203–214, observes that while Melabók is concerned with the king’s confiscation of allodial land, Sturlubók is connected to the possession of chieftaincies. Sverrir Jakobsson has argued that while a king called Haraldr hárfagri may have existed in the ninth century, his depiction in the Íslendingasögur resembles that of a mythical character such as King Arthur. For further on the legendary characterization of Haraldr see Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Óþekkti konungurinn. Sagnir um Harald hárfagra,’ Ný saga, 11 (1999), 38–53; and Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, ‘English Models’, pp. 359–364. íf i, p. 186. Haraldr’s victory at this battle was taken by later saga authors as the moment at which he assumed sole control over Norway. It is commemorated in the poem Haraldskvæði, in which Haraldr is called dróttin Norðmanna (king of the Northmen). íf xxix, p. 61. íf i, pp. 217–220 (Ingimundr), 316–317 (Hrollaugr). íf i, p. 124. íf iv, pp. 5–7. Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Constructing a Past,’ pp. 182–184.

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If attitudes towards Haraldr vary in individual accounts of the landnám in the landnámabækur, similar variations can also be found in the Íslendingasögur. Although ten sagas contain a negative depiction of Haraldr’s actions in Norway, more than half of the forty or so preserved narratives fail to mention the landnám or the Norwegian king at all.183 Two, Kormáks saga and Vatnsdæla saga, by contrast, refer to the friendship between Haraldr hárfagri and some of the Icelandic colonists.184 These conflicting views and memories of a Norwegian king who was at once distant and present, friend and enemy, are significant, for they suggest that between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries Icelandic historiographers were negotiating the island’s relationship with Norway using different literary forms. The very figure of ‘the king’ became a tool of historical memory and Icelandic authors backdated their own perceptions of the Iceland–Norway relationship. In short, the ninth-century king and the ‘historical’ facts of the landnám were characterized according to thirteenth- and fourteenth-century preoccupations and concerns. The tradition of ofríki Haralds continued in Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, suggesting that negative attitudes towards Haraldr persisted in the fourteenthcentury.185 But another fourteenth-century source discloses a different assessment of this king. Written after Iceland had come under the remit of the Norwegian crown, the Hauksbók version of Landnámabók contains an account of a settlement-age land dispute in which the Norwegian king acted as a conciliatory mediator.186 According to Hauksbók, a number of extensive land-claims made by earlier settlers in the Southern Quarter prompted some later ­arrivals to formally complain to the Norwegian king that there was little available land left.187 While it would be an exaggeration to conclude from this that the 183 These ten sagas are: Egils saga, Eyrbyggja saga, Laxdæla saga, Harðar saga ok Hólmverja, Gísla saga (long version), Flóamanna saga, Grettis saga, Svarfdæla saga, Bárðar saga and Víglundar saga. For their time of composition and contents see íf ii, iv, v, vi, vii, ix, xiii and xiv. Of these ten, Egils saga is considered by the editors of the íf series to be the oldest and its account clearly influences the nine later narratives. 184 Kormáks saga reveals antipathy towards Eiríkr blóðǫx. íf viii, pp. 203–204. 185 Conflicting traditions are expressed about the reason for the departure of Geirmundr heljarskinn from Norway. Neither Sturlubók nor Hauksbók nor Grettis saga indicate he left fyrir ofríki Haralds. This reason is given, however, in the early fourteenth-century tale Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, which is the opening narrative of Sturlunga saga. This compilation is particularly concerned with the royal connections that existed between Iceland’s elite and the Norwegian aristocracy. For further, see Sturlunga Saga, I, p. 3; and Úlfar Bragason, ‘The Politics of Genealogies’, pp. 309–321. 186 íf i, pp. 337, 339 (H294); Hauksbók, p. 103. 187 Notable settlers in this Quarter include Helgi bjóla, Ketilbjǫrn Ketilsson and Ingólfr.

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l­ andnámsmenn who had settled in the Sunnlendingafjórðungur retained some respect for the Norwegian king’s authority and, perhaps, even his jurisdiction, it nonetheless raises the possibility that the memory of a Norwegian executive authority and its utility for keeping the peace was looked upon retrospectively with some indulgence. The fact that this account was linked to the settlement period and names the Norwegian king who, since the twelfth century seems to have been perceived as the root cause of the migration to Iceland, is significant. Hauksbók is the only text to record the details of the land dispute, its mediation and royal prescription. The king’s ruling on the land dispute is ­contained in Chapter 294: [...] no one should claim more land than he and his crew could mark off in a single day by means of signal fires. They should kindle the first fire as the sun was in the east, and then other fires should be built so that the smoke from one might be seen from the next. Those kindled while the sun was in the east must be kept burning till night-fall. Then they should walk until the sun was in the west and then make other fires.188 The geographical extent of a land-claim was structured around the visibility of burning beacons, an act that enabled the extent of the claim to be verified by eyewitnesses observing the smoke clouds.189 The integrity of the land’s boundaries required external demonstration. On the basis of the king’s supposed ­ruling, it appears that some of the land taken by the early colonists, including Ingólfr and Helgi enn magri,190 may have been recalibrated at a later date and reallocated to additional settlers. Haraldr’s alleged ruling refers to a traditional custom associated with the hallowing of land by fire.191 While the association of this practice with the king’s judgement lends the story some credibility, the only reason why such a ruling, according to the source, would have any authority, must stem from Haraldr’s status as ‘King of Norway’ – a status which, in spite of the late ninth- or early tenth-century judgement ascribed to him by Haukr, we cannot be sure any such figure ever attained. If we briefly speculate that Haraldr did intervene in a settlement-age land dispute, then we might wonder if he interpreted the decision to refer the matter to him as some sort of implicit acknowledgement on the part of the colonists 188 íf i, pp. 337, 339 (H294); Hauksbók, p. 103. This translation is from Jón Jóhannesson, Commonwealth, p. 30. 189 Clunies Ross, ‘Land-Taking,’ p. 179. 190 íf i, pp. 45, 250, 252. 191 íf i, p. 252.

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of his continuing authority over them. On the face of it, it appears incongruous that migrants, ostensibly fleeing the wrath of a Norwegian king who was accused of confiscating family lands and violating the principle of óðal, would then refer a disagreement over their landholdings in an island beyond his immediate reach for his advice and judgement. For Jón Jóhannesson, the referral of the matter to Haraldr hárfagri for his ruling was an entirely logical one.192 These individuals had paid landaurar to the king prior to their departure for Iceland, an act which, for Martin Arnold, serves as a tacit acknowledgement of the king’s dominion over them.193 An important distinction is made by Sigurður Nordal, who suggested that the islanders did not so much submit to the Norwegian king in the matter as submit to Norwegian law.194 The first Icelandic law-code, the subject of the next chapter, was not formulated until c.927–930. From the time of the settlement until some sixty years later, the colonists resorted to using laws with which they would have been familiar. These laws were Norwegian and the ultimate arbiter of Norwegian law was the king. It is, therefore, important to place the memory of the islanders’ alleged compliance with Haraldr’s judgement in juxtaposition with their adherence to a law-code. At the time of the settlement, Norway was divided into several law districts within which a different law-code obtained; the landnámsmenn, as we shall see in Chapter 3, did not all subscribe to the same legal customs. For Haraldr to make a ruling that was binding for all the landnámsmenn and could not be gainsaid, he would have had to have enjoyed the status of supreme authority and not just a primacy over the law-code of his region of Norway. The evidence for this having been the case in the ninth century, as we have seen, is poor. Haukr Erlendsson’s account is both interesting and provocative, whether it is the description of a genuine settlement-age event or not.195 He was especially well-placed in both Icelandic and Norwegian legal circles as he had once been lawman for the Gulaþing196 and also a sheriff for the Norwegian king.197 Furthermore Haukr was involved in the ‘Icelandification’ of the island’s Norwegian-­given law, Jónsbók.198 Given his background, it is p ­ articularly 192 Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, pp. 44–45. 193 Arnold, Post-Classical Saga, pp. 22–23. 194 Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk menning, vol. I (Reykjavik, 1942), p. 103. 195 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 212–214, doubts the land dispute was included in Melabók, which reflects the earliest Landnámabók most closely. 196 di ii, p. 372. di ii, p. 332, notes that Haukr was the lǫgmaðr (lawman) in Oslo. 197 di ii, pp. 342, 414–415. 198 di ii, pp. 341–342.

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i­nteresting that, writing in the fourteenth century, Haukr considered the memory of this landnámsöld land dispute to be a valid inclusion within his account of the island’s settlement. It is likely, however, that the inclusion of a royal judgement, and the legitimacy of that judgement in a fourteenth-century account of the landnám, stemmed from the contemporary perception of royal authority by its compiler, rather than an accurate account of the actuality of royal authority in the ninth century. Haukr locates the early relationship between Iceland and Norway within a later legal framework and the post-submission jurisdiction of the Norwegian king. While the composers of the Íslendingasögur interpreted Haraldr’s role in the landnám in the context of their attempt to legitimize the island’s kingfree status, Haukr’s emphasis on a close legal relationship between Iceland and Norway in the ninth and early tenth centuries could be seen to legitimize later Norwegian authority over the island. Haukr’s story also provides a culturally meaningful explanation for both the gradual erosion of Icelandic autonomy vis-à-vis Norway and the intrinsic value of royal authority and the institution of kingship in making the law and preserving the peace. Importantly, however, Haukr’s account gives no indication as to how the king’s ruling should be enforced, implicitly suggesting it is down to the islanders themselves. This depicts the islanders as ‘good’ and ‘honourable’ subjects, obedient to their king. Conclusion The Icelandic accounts of the landnám display a remarkable consistency. They suggest the desire to exert control over the past and, by that means, to ­consolidate a present and future, founded on a defined and established legacy. They describe the past as a Norwegian-led enterprise in which a highborn Norwegian, who claimed a legendary Norwegian hero as his ancestor, ­re-established himself on an island. It is Íslendingabók which establishes the ‘figures of memory’ for later Icelandic accounts of the landnám. Norse ancestry and, in particular, a high social status, are emphasized, indicating that these forms of symbolic capital retained their value in twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iceland. Whatever about their points of divergence, the memories of a shared Icelandic history, constructed around Ingólfr and other highborn Norwegian settlers, made the past all the more real and relevant to later generations of Icelanders. Norway had to be an ever-present element in the construction of their identity. The surviving traditions about the landnám, Ingólfr and Haraldr hárfagri were

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venerable products of the dialogue between the two countries, a dialogue that was constructed in the form of memorable narratives situated around paragons and villains. Their fluctuating descriptions of Icelanders and Norwegians provide an opportunity to chart the way in which Icelanders and Norwegians thought about and reconstructed their past. These historical constructions are based on the interplay between history, memory and myth, on the one hand, and geography, topography and social action, on the other. They are documents of cultural memory, at once backward looking and present-centred, for “myth embeds the past in the present, while history embeds the present in the past.”199 The creation of their own historical mythology and foundation narratives enabled the Icelanders to claim their Norwegian past, or the ‘acceptable’ aspects of that past, on their own terms. 199 Hastrup, ‘Presenting the Past,’ p. 266.

chapter 3

The Legal Mythology of Iceland The landnám, discussed in the previous chapter, not only marked a physical break with the migrants’ ancestral homeland, but also prompted a series of socio-political changes as the colonists attempted to adjust to their new environment. Foremost among these was the establishment of a legal system for the new society. Throughout medieval Scandinavia a distinction was made “between law and non-law.”1 Law was seen not only as creating society, but as its defining characteristic, a notion captured in the proverb that precedes many medieval Scandinavian law-books: “með lǫgum skal land várt byggja”2 (with law shall the land be built). Indeed, Icelanders referred to their society as vár lǫg (“our law”).3 The landnámsmenn were familiar with the Norwegian territorial conceptualization of law and continued to follow this tradition in their new environment where, according to Íslendingabók, they established their own law in the early tenth century.4 This act has been interpreted as a declaration of autonomy: it identified the island’s population as inhabiting a different geographical and legal space to that of their Norwegian counterparts. The ways in which the memory of this moment was developed and articulated provided early Icelandic authors with an opportunity to define themselves and their society. Of particular importance is the manner in which Norway was included, implicitly and explicitly, in the social and legal-ideological context of the memory of this law-giving/law-making process. The point of departure for this chapter is the tantalizing reference to the island’s first law-code in Íslendingabók. The following discussion is focussed on the legal mythology of the Icelanders, specifically that constructed around the memory of the island’s first law-code, the circumstances of its creation and the individuals involved in its production. Studies of Icelandic law are few (compared to the numerous studies of sagas); most of the key scholarly works were produced in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century by 1 Kirsten Hastrup, ‘Cosmography,’ in Medieval Scandinavia, eds Pulsiano and Wolf, p. 109. 2 íf xii, p. 172. 3 Hastrup, Island of Anthropology, p. 140; Hastrup, Culture and History, pp. 205–207. 4 íf i, pp. 6–7. Gudmund Sandvik and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Laws,’ in Companion, ed. McTurk, p. 223, write that lǫg “had a territorial sense: a region bound by rules.” This is borne out by the earliest Scandinavian legal text, the early ninth-century Forsa runic ring inscription, which refers to the “law of the people [land]”. For further, see Stefan Brink, ‘Law and Legal Customs in Viking Age Scandinavia’, in The Scandinavians From the Vendel Period to the Tenth Century: An Ethnographic Perspective, ed. Judith Jesch (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 96–98. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004336513_005

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­Vilhjálmur Finsen, Jón Sigurðsson and Konrad Maurer and, somewhat later, Andreas Heusler.5 More recent scholarly approaches to the early legal and constitutional development of medieval Iceland have either scrutinized the island’s socio-political structure (described in the sagas and preserved lawcodes) or attempted to explain the evolution of a political culture in Iceland prior to the island’s submission to Norway in the late thirteenth century.6 A related line of inquiry has seen early Icelandic legal and constitutional history used in studies of Icelandic identity. In the early twentieth century, Bogi Th. Melsteð argued that the Icelanders perceived themselves to be different to their Norwegian counterparts once they had promulgated their own laws and instituted their þings, events that founded the islanders’ þjóðfélag (society).7 His contention, based on modern ideas of nationhood that link law-making institutions with ethnicity, prioritized the establishment of the Alþingi over other aspects of early Icelandic legal history. By according such significant status to an event which appears to be little more than the continuation of familiar Norwegian norms and customs in a new environment,8 other potential lines of inquiry into the island’s earliest law-code and the manner of its creation were not pursued.9 More recently, Kirsten Hastrup has identified three levels of linguistic identity in the preserved law-codes of the Free State each of which, she argues, denotes varying levels of affinity and belonging.10 5 6

See Bibliography for full publication details. Miller’s studies have been summarized in Bloodtaking; more recently he has examined the law in Audun and the Polar Bear: Luck, Law and Largesse in a Medieval Tale of Risky Business (Leiden, 2008); and ‘Why is Your Axe Bloody?’ A Reading of Njáls saga (Oxford, 2014). See also the works by Jesse L. Byock, Gunnar Karlsson, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Stefan Brink given in the Bibliography. 7 Bogi Th. Melsteð argued that the separate legal status of the Icelanders was recognized in the early eleventh-century Ólafslög. For further, see his Rjettur íslendinga í Noregi og norðmanna á Íslandi á dögum þjóðveldisins (Copenhagen, 1913); and ‘Töldu Íslendingar sig á dögum þjóðveldisins vera Norðmenn?’, in Afmælisrit til Dr. Phil. Kr. Kålunds bókavarðar við safn Árna Magnússonar 19 ágúst 1914 (Copenhagen, 1914), pp. 16–33. 8 Within Scandinavia the areas administered by a þing rarely, if ever, coincided with the territories of discrete ethnic communities although they did indicate an area within which a uniform code of law was in force. Gunnar Karlsson, The History of Iceland (Minneapolis, 2000), p. 21: “it is more likely that it [the Alþingi] served the unintended purpose of creating an ethnic ­community with a strong resemblance to a nation.” 9 The perception of þjóð as being synonymous with the Alþingi persisted until the mid-1960s and Sigurður Líndal’s reinterpretation of the Icelandic submission to Norway in the thirteenth century. For further, see Sigurður Líndal, ‘Utanríkisstefna Íslendinga á 13. öld og aðdragandi sáttmálans 1262–64,’ Úlfljótur, 17 (1964), 5–36. 10 Hastrup, Island of Anthropology, pp. 83–102.

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Each discrete linguistic tier stresses the separate legal status of the Icelanders vis-à-vis a particular grouping: Norwegians in the first instance, then Scandinavians and, finally, all other peoples. Although Hastrup’s research emphasizes the deep connection between Icelanders and Norwegians some centuries after the landnám, it does not significantly contribute to an enhanced understanding of the island’s first law-code. Any study of early Icelandic legal history is beset by three challenges: firstly, the question as to whether the sources available are of a ‘normative’ or ‘narrative’ character; secondly, the quantity of the material that has survived, particularly from the first centuries following the island’s settlement; and, thirdly, the age of the surviving sources.11 No testimony contemporary with the creation of the first law-code or earliest assemblies exists.12 There is, however, a near contemporary textual witness to the twelfth-century codification of the Icelandic laws. According to Íslendingabók, the writing of the Icelandic laws took place over the winter of 1117–18, an enterprise which involved a number of representatives of Iceland’s secular and ecclesiastical authorities.13 Cooperation between secular and ecclesiastical authorities had a precedent: the Tithe Law (c.1097), which was promulgated by Bishop Gizurr, with the assistance of Sæmundr Sigfússon and the serving lawspeaker, Markús Skeggjason.14 Although Íslendingabók does not explicitly state that clerics were involved in the codification of the island’s secular laws, merely naming those responsible as Hafliði Másson, the lawspeaker Bergþórr and other unspecified individuals, it is safe to assume that this was not an entirely secular endeavour.15 The Christian Law section reveals that Bishops Þorlákr (1118–33) and Ketill (1122–45), two of the men who ‘read’ Ari’s first text of Íslendingabók, were involved in its codification, together with Archbishop Ǫzurr of Lund (1104–37). This section 11 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–45. 12 The initial clauses of the Úlfljótslög are given in Chapter 268 of Hauksbók. They are also found in Flateyjarbók’s account of Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts, Skarðsárbók, the appendix to Þórðarbók, and Brot af Þórðar saga hreðu. For further, see íf i, pp. 313, 315; Hauksbók, pp. 95–96; Flb i, p. 249; íf xiii, pp. 342–343; Skarðsárbók: Landnámabók Björns Jónssonar á Skarðsá, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavik: Háskóli Íslands, 1958), pp. 146–147; and íf xiv, pp. 230–232. 13 íf i, pp. 23–24. The author of the mid-twelfth century First Grammatical Treatise states that laws were one of the subjects preserved by Icelanders in writing at an early stage. fgt, p. 12. 14 íf i, p. 22. Bishop Gizurr Ísleifsson was also responsible for the laws establishing the two Icelandic bishoprics at Skálholt (1082) and Hólar (1106). See Hans Fix, ‘Laws,’ in Medieval Scandinavia, eds Pulsiano and Wolf, p. 385. 15 íf i, p. 23.

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appears to have been compiled in or around the same time as Ari produced his second version of Íslendingabók. Like this early history, the codification of the island’s laws was an endeavour that connected early writing, the Haukdælir and the Church together.16 Ari’s account goes on to state that, after the codification of the Treatment of Homicide Law and “many other things in the laws,” these acts were then “declared in the Law Council by clerics” the following summer.17 This development marks a shift in the duties of the lawspeaker who, up until this time, had been solely responsible for reciting the laws.18 Íslendingabók does not mention the law undergoing any significant amendments or additions at the time of its codification. It is highly possible that the law did undergo significant changes immediately prior to its codification, but precisely what Ari is referring to when he indicates that the men involved wrote “many other things” is likely to remain a mystery. It is, however, unlikely that this first written law-code, known as the Hafliðaskrá, was fixed, but could accommodate the inclusion of nýmæli or ‘new laws.’19 Although Ari states that the ‘official’ recording of the island’s laws took place in the early twelfth century, it is plausible that some private documentation of the laws may have taken place earlier.20 The desire to preserve the island’s laws in written form was likely connected to an Icelandic perception of specific political and constitutional problems. These problems can be understood within the context of the island’s understanding of its relationship with Norway and the need to demonstrate in unequivocal terms that the island was a legitimate polity located in a legally defined space. If this was the case, it may even be conjectured that the codification of Icelandic law, together with the composition of Íslendingabók and, perhaps, the earliest Landnámabók, were all part of a toolkit designed to establish the legitimacy of the Icelanders. The involvement of the same men in at least two of these enterprises would seem to indicate that all three were part of the same process, which may have also been connected to a desire to attain and consolidate the power base of the early Icelandic Church and, by extension, establish the eminency of the Haukdælir. 16

17 18 19

20

Hafliði Másson was a member of the Haukdælir, the family who sponsored early Icelandic history-writing and from whom the island’s first bishops came. For further, see Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization, pp. 19–24. íf i, p. 24. Grágás Ia, p. 209. [K116]. Peter Foote, ‘Reflections on Landabrigðisþáttr and Rekaþáttr in Grágás,’ in Tradition og historieskrivning: kilderne til Nordens ældste historie, eds Kirsten Hastrup and Preben Meulengracht Sørensen (Aarhus, 1987), p. 55. Grágás Ia, p. 213.

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The medieval Icelandic law-codes of the Free State, collectively referred to as Grágás, have survived in two manuscripts: Konungsbók (or Codex Regius), which dates to the mid-thirteenth century, and the slightly later S­ taðarhólsbók.21 There is a general consensus that these law-codes are a good representation of twelfth-century Icelandic law with some sections remaining relevant in the thirteenth century.22 The preserved texts have a complicated and convoluted history. Furthermore, their contents are different: Konungsbók contains sections devoted to constitutional concerns that are omitted from Staðarhólsbók. Of all the Germanic legal texts, Grágás is the most exhaustive. These ­law-codes have been described as “compilations of law, legal tradition, descriptions of procedure, formulas and bits of legal history and knowledge.”23 They offer guidelines – and flexible guidelines at that – for how disputes might be settled in different circumstances. For Miller, Icelandic law consists of a series of s­ ocially-accepted and endorsed precepts for standard practice, most of which were not absolute – although some were non-negotiable – and which allowed for disputes to be resolved privately.24 Byock has emphasized the ‘directing’ aspect of the laws, contending that well-placed individuals could use the law and, more particularly, their knowledge and interpretation of the law, to gain advantage.25 While the contents of some sections of Grágás are demonstrably older than the manuscripts in which they have been preserved and allow elements of medieval Icelandic law to be dated to the eleventh century, shortly after the decision had been taken to codify the island’s laws, these law-codes do not necessarily enhance our understanding of the laws that obtained before this time. On the basis of a statement made in Íslendingabók, it was assumed that similarities existed between the earliest Icelandic law-code and its Norwegian counterparts.26 These assumptions are impossible to prove, simply because the first law-code was preserved orally and underwent a series of revisions and amendments before being committed to writing. This difficulty aside, it is possible to find a few vestiges of earlier legal practices in a number of literary 21

For the manuscripts, see Per Norseng, ‘Law Codes as a Source for Nordic History in the Early Middle Ages,’ Scandinavian Journal of History 16, 3 (1991), 137–166. 22 Dennis, Foote and Perkins, ‘Introduction,’ p. 13. 23 Orri Vésteinsson, ‘The Christianisation of Iceland: Priests, Power and Social Change ­1000–1300’ (PhD diss., University of London, 1996), p. 35. 24 Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 228. He considers considers arbitrated settlements the most likely outcome for lawsuits (p. 273). 25 Byock, Medieval Iceland, pp. 20–21. 26 íf i, p. 7.

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texts.27 In particular, three legal articles believed to have formed part of the first law-code have been preserved in the Hauksbók text of Landnámabók and Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts. Chapter 268 of Hauksbók contains the fuller version of these stipulations: the first concerns boat mastheads, the second the ringoath, while the third deals with the secular responsibilities of the goðar.28 The age and authenticity of these legal provisions have been contested, prompting a range of scholarly opinion on their significance. The Danish archaeologist, Olaf Olsen, gave a particularly blunt assessment, describing them as amounting to little more than “stykket uden værdi”29 (a piece of no value). More recently, Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson has argued that articles i and ii, which deal with pre-Christian traditions and appear to have been written in the early ­twelfth-century, should be seen as valid sources for tenth-century religion in Iceland.30 Ari’s supposed involvement in the preservation of these articles has prompted debate. The possibility that Ari recorded these clauses is relevant to the present discussion, for it was he who preserved the memory of how the first law-code came to the island in Íslendingabók or, more precisely, how he imagined it to have come to the island. A contradiction between Íslendingabók’s account of the division of the island into Quarters and article iii served as irrefutable evidence for both Jón Jóhannesson and Jakob Benediktsson that Ari did not record this information.31 Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, by contrast, maintains that the wording of articles i and ii suggests that they may have been recorded by Ari.32 Even if Ari was responsible for recording these provisions, there is also disagreement as to which of his works contained this information. Konrad Maurer believed that these legal clauses had originally been included 27

28 29 30 31

32

A number of sagas refer to assemblies and their laws, both home and abroad. For instance Chapter 56 of Egils saga contains a description of the Gulaþing held in c.946, and outlines how a court site should be laid out. Chapter 77 of Óláfs saga helga reports on the legal environment of Sweden, while Chapter 94 supports the territorial conceptualization of the law in its account of different laws for different peoples. For further, see íf ii, pp. 154–158; and íf xxvii, pp. 109–110, 150–151. íf i, pp. 313, 315. Olaf Olsen, Hørg, hov og kirke: historiske og arkæologiske vikingetidsstudier (Copenhagen, 1966), p. 49. He considers these references to be learned reconstructions (pp. 34–49). Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak: A Pagan Ritual Turning Point in the Conversion of Iceland (Reykjavik, 1999), p. 177. Jón Jóhannesson, Gerðir Landnámabókar, p. 212, names Styrmir Kárason as the author of these passages. Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis,’ pp. 172–173, also believed that Ari did not record these passages and doubted the veracity of all three provisions based on the inconsistencies between article iii and Íslendingabók. Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, pp. 176–177.

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in the first text of Íslendingabók and were later removed at the behest of Ari’s panel of clerical advisors.33 Björn M. Ólsen, however, argued that these laws were included in Ari’s Landnámabók.34 While Maurer’s hypothesis goes some way toward accounting for the omission of this legal material from the preserved Íslendingabók, indicating that the bishops wished to remove all vestiges of Iceland’s pre-Christian religious traditions from the text, this assessment does not fit with Ari’s remarkably secular conversion account. Ari’s history describes how the first laws were brought to Iceland in the early tenth century and how, as a result, Icelandic society was created. He was especially well-placed to document the changes, both secular and religious, that had taken place between the tenth and twelfth centuries. He would also have been acutely aware of the island’s legal development, as the clerics who were his textual advisers were also directly involved with the promulgation of a number of laws.35 Instead of focussing on institutions, and on the inauguration of the Alþingi in particular, the following discussion examines the individuals involved in the earliest processes of law-giving and law-making in Iceland. This approach emphasizes the agency of an individual or a number of ­individuals – the law-giver(s) together with the agency of the author who preserved the memory of these men and their endeavours. It also places the ideology expressed by Ari’s account of events and its political goals within the context of the early relationship between Iceland and Norway. Moreover, the figure of the law-giver is generally an important one in the foundation mythologies of political communities. The political community partly derived its legitimacy and authority from the special skills and attributes of this individual, who embodied the community’s intellectual heritage.36 Insofar as the law-giver creates a 33

34

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36

Konrad Maurer, Die Quellenzeugnisse über das erste Landrecht und über die Ordnung der Bezirksverfassung des isländischen Freistaates (Munich, 1869), p. 72. Björn M. Ólsen, ‘Ari Þorgilsson hinn fróði,’ Tímarit hins íslenzka bókmenntafélags, 10 (1889), p. 233, concurred with Maurer that Ari first recorded the three articles in writing but believed they were included in his version of Landnámabók. Björn M. Ólsen, ‘Om forholdet mellem de to bearbejdelser af Ares Islændingebog,’ Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1885), p. 359; Björn M. Ólsen, ‘Ari Þorgilsson,’ p. 233; and Björn M. Ólsen, ‘Om Are frode,’ Aarbøger for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie (1893–94), p. 242. All three of Ari’s advisors, Bishop Þorlákr Runólfsson, Bishop Ketill Þorsteinsson and Sæmundr Sigfússon, brought the Christian Laws before the Alþingi in the period in which Ari composed Íslendingabók, while Sæmundr had played a pivotal role in the passing of the Tithe Law in 1097. Barbara Silberdick Feinberg, ‘Creativity and the Political Community: The Role of the LawGiver in the Thought of Plato, Machiavelli and Rousseau,’ The Western Political ­Quarterly, 23, 3 (1970), p. 482.

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politically ordered community from that established by the ‘hero-founder,’ his deeds may be described as acts of foundation and institution. The memories Ari preserved of these men and their actions formed the basis for the legal mythology of the Icelanders. His version of events is constructed around individuals, each of whom was “raised by the age to answer its perplexities.”37 The landnám, an enterprise led by Ingólfr, resulted in the establishment of a group of individuals united by virtue of their shared interests, beliefs and values. This group was then transformed into a political community by two other men: Úlfljótr, who brought the laws from Norway to the island − a series of rules by which the community could be governed and defined − and Þorleifr inn spaki, who acted as a ‘constitution maker’ by amending and ­applying those principles of order and norms of ethical conduct to the community.38 The conversion of the Icelanders, an event which challenged the integrity of early Icelandic law, is also examined within this framework. Ari’s version of events not only shows the way in which an educated twelfth-century author sought to interpret the island’s first law-code and the change of faith, it also reveals the manner in which twelfth-century (and later) Icelanders wished to view their legal history − and their perception of that history − within the framework of the island’s relationship with their ancestral homeland, Norway. While Ari selects the details he includes in Íslendingabók to suit his own purposes, the fact that he chooses to place Norway at the core of the island’s early legal and constitutional history is significant, and not merely because of his own political and familial connections.39 His account of how the island’s first law-code was constructed reveals that it was understood as having been introduced through an external channel: Norway. This acknowledgement aside, the explanation provided by Ari as to how and why a Norwegian code of law was adopted indicates that he may not have been familiar with the precise mechanics of the process. Instead, he chose to construct his account around a number of named individuals or ‘figures of memory,’ each of whom had a role to play in bringing the laws to Iceland before adapting them to suit the island’s specific requirements and establishing the Alþingi on a pre-selected site.40 The 37 38 39 40

Ralph Roeder, The Man of the Renaissance. Four Lawgivers: Savonarola, Machiavelli, Castiglione, Aretino (New York, 1933), p. vii. Carl J. Friedrich, Man and his Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics (New York, 1963), p. 391. Both Úlfljótr and Þorleifr act as nomothetes, law-givers. Sigurður Líndal, ‘Sendiför Úlfljóts: Ásamt nokkrum athugasemdum um landnám Ingólfs Arnarsonar’, Skírnir, 143 (1969), 5–26; Einar Arnórsson, Ari fróði, pp. 1–10, 90–95. íf i, pp. 7, 8.

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same might be said of his account of the islanders’ conversion, which recounts how a number of individuals, Icelandic and Norwegian, initiated a process that was legitimized by means of a voluntary collective decision. The actions of all these individuals were then locked into the settlement mythology of the island espoused by the preserved versions of the landnámabækur and the ­Íslendingasögur through their relationships, real or putative, genealogical and financial, with a number of key figures. In this way, the collective memory of the first laws, assemblies and conversion became fused with the settlement mythology, selectively simplifying and narrating early Icelandic history, presenting a univocal and linear account of events.

Íslendingabók and Early Icelandic law

Íslendingabók describes how, following the island’s settlement, the main legal and constitutional decisions taken by the landnámsmenn between the Age of Settlement and early twelfth century were: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

the adoption of a series of oral laws from Norway; the establishment of a national assembly (Alþingi) on a pre-selected site; the amendment of their calculation of the calendar; the division of the country into Quarters and reformation of their court system; the acceptance of Christianity; the establishment of the Fifth Court; the Tithe Law; the decision to commit their hitherto orally-preserved laws to written form.

Ari only mentions what he considers to be the most significant laws.41 In addition to these, he also provides a list of named lawspeakers within his chapters, as well as a number of brief references to an early assembly, the island’s early law and changes made to it.42 41 42

Sandvik and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Laws,’ p. 224. For the lawspeakers see íf i, pp. 8, 9, 13, 16, 19, 20, 22 and 23. Other references suggestive of the law include the decision to confiscate Þórir kroppinskeggi’s land (íf i, pp. 8–9); the calendar recalculation announced at the Law-Rock suggests it replaced an earlier version (íf i, pp. 9–11); the division of the country into Quarters and establishment of the

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It is difficult to reconcile the lack of information Ari gives about the island’s earliest legal environment with the important status the law had assumed by the time he was composing his history.43 This does not mean that his account of the island’s first law-code and the men involved in its production is entirely fabricated, but the lack of supporting contemporary testimony for their endeavours does not rule this out.44 Íslendingabók is largely concerned with events that that took place between 996 and 1120, i.e. after the legal and institutional developments in which we are interested, but within the lifetime of Ari’s key informants. While Ari’s focus on a time for which he felt he had reliable information is reassuring and lends credibility to his account of more recent constitutional developments, each and every detail in his history was important simply because it was included.45 The manner in which these memoranda were chosen, however, suggests that Ari elevated the histories of certain families over others through their involvement with key events or association with the Church and other institutions. His informants’ understanding and, indeed, perhaps his own understanding, of earlier events, may therefore not only be far from disinterested but may also have been subject to a retrospective recasting in light of his and his contemporaries’ understanding of them. This latter adjustment may have been determined by a growing Icelandic awareness and, indeed, anxiety about what others might perceive to be their constitutional and political deficiencies. Although Ari only provides the briefest of references to the island’s first law-code and the manner of its formulation, his account indicates something about how the formative role played by Norway and Norwegian models in framing early Icelandic society was understood and remembered. In particular, it reveals how Ari was aware that the islanders’ possession of a law-code was part of larger legal tradition and context. For the purposes of the present discussion, only two of Ari’s subjects – (1) the adoption of a series of oral laws from Norway and (5) the acceptance of Christianity – shall be examined more closely; reference shall also be made to the early assemblies and Alþingi

43 44 45

Quarter assemblies (íf i, pp. 11–12); the change in the timing of the Alþingi (íf i, p. 15); the ­reference to the ‘old laws’ which allowed for infanticide and the consumption of horse meat (íf i, p. 17); that prior to the provision that only a murderer could take responsibility for his killings, similar laws had existed in Iceland and Norway (íf i, p. 19); the Tithe Law (íf i, p. 22); establishment of the episcopal see at Skálholt (íf i, p. 23); the formulation of the Homicide law (íf i, p. 24). Adam of Bremen remarks on the importance of law for the Icelanders: “Apud illos non est rex, nisi tantum lex” (among them is no king, only law). gh, p. 273 [Lib. iv, cap. xxxvi]. Sigurður Líndal, ‘Sendiför Úlfljóts,’ p. 17. Lindow, ‘Íslendingabók and Myth,’ p. 460.

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where appropriate. According to Ari’s account, both the island’s first law-code and the conversion had a Norwegian stimulus. Although the end result of each was, as we shall see, the product of Icelandic social action and processes, the fact that Norway was placed at the inception of the memories of these events is significant. Of particular interest to the present investigation is the way in which a number of the individuals involved in the law-giving and law-making processes were connected to Norwegian royalty and the king’s circle. These links, whether real or putative, constructed a memorable legal mythology for the Icelanders, justifying social processes and legitimizing actions, endowing them with authority.

The Adoption of a Series of Oral Laws from Norway

According to Íslendingabók, once the island had been “víða byggt orðit” (settled widely), a man from the East called Úlfljótr, who had settled in Lón, “first brought the laws out here from Norway.”46 The source of this information is a member of the Haukdælir: Ari’s foster-father and tutor, Teitr.47 No information is given as to how Úlfljótr was selected and appointed to his task. Perhaps Teitr did not know or maybe these details were forgotten. While he clearly believed that Úlfljótr was the first man to bring laws to the island from ­Norway, Íslendingabók remains silent on whether additional trips between the two countries were made by others for the express purpose of undertaking legal research. The text makes no mention of the legal custom to which the early settlers may have subscribed upon first settling in their new environment. Ari writes that the island’s first law-code, which became known as the Úlfljótslög, was framed according to a pre-existing Norwegian model, the Gulaþingslög (literally ‘the laws of the Gulaþing’).48 But Iceland was not Norway in counterfeit: the settlers, exhibiting a degree of constitutional voluntarism, entrusted Þorleifr inn spaki to amend the laws of the Gulaþing according to their own requirements, specifically “where things should be added, removed, or set up in another [different] way.”49 The island’s colonists found themselves in a new environment, which was subsequently rapidly settled by incoming Norwegians, their largely Gaelicspeaking slaves and a number of other settlers to whom the landnámabækur 46 47 48 49

íf i, pp. 6, 7. íf i, p. 7. íf i, p. 7: “en þau váru flest sett at því sem þá váru Golaþingslǫg.” íf i, p. 7.

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ascribed different ethnic origins. Iceland was a blank canvas: it afforded a unique opportunity for an autonomous community to establish, administer and legislate for itself. The form of legal and constitutional framework that emerged was bound to be highly indebted to those forms that the landnámsmenn had left behind them in their home country. Drawing on the “ancient idea of social unification”50 – the law – the settlers naturally turned to known models when framing their society. Norway was an obvious choice from which to obtain their laws or, at least, the foundation for them. As we have already seen, according to the ­landnámabækur, the vast majority of their named settlers travelled directly from Norway or came to the island without having spent a prolonged period elsewhere.51 This latter point is important, for it suggests that of the original settlers, most had not lived for any significant length of time in another ­jurisdiction and, consequently, had not been exposed to any legal custom outside of that which had prevailed in the Norwegian district from which they came. Of the remaining settlers – a Dane, a Swede, a Fleming, a selection of men from Britain and the Hebrides – their aggregate number made up such a small proportion of the island’s first permanent population that it seems unlikely that these men had any lasting impact on the shaping of Iceland’s early legal environment.52 Even the twenty or thirty settlers who were of Norse origin, but who had journeyed to Iceland following extended stays in the ­Hebrides, Britain or Ireland, appear to have had little input into the island’s early legal history. Despite this supposed common origin, the émigrés did not all necessarily subscribe to the same understanding of law. At the time of the island’s settlement, Norway did not possess a single law-code. Ninth-century Norway was divided into a number of discrete legal provinces, each of which had its own assembly (þing) and within which a different legal code prevailed.53 The existence of a number of Norwegian provincial þing districts was due 50 Hastrup, Island of Anthropology, p. 72. 51 Einar Arnórsson, ‘Árið 930’, Skírnir, 104 (1930), p. 11. Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 221–225, counts 435 named settlers of which 130 are from Norway and 50 from Britain or Ireland. The mention of a place of departure indicates that most of the remaining 255 individuals were Norwegian. Meulengracht Sørensen, ‘Social Institutions,’ p. 18, writes that 90 per cent of the 270 colonists given an ethnic designation in the landnámabækur were Scandinavian. 52 Einar Arnórsson, ‘Árið 930,’ pp. 12–13. 53 Different laws, known as the Bjarkeyjarréttr, were in force in the trading centres. For further see Olaf Brattegard, ‘Bjärköarätt,’ Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, i (Copenhagen, 1956), col. 660.

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to g­eographical as well as logistical reasons. According to saga tradition, three Norwegian þing districts, the Gulaþing (west Norway), Frostaþing (the Trøndelag) and Eiðsivaþing (east Norway), existed at the time of the I­ celandic settlement or were near contemporaries of it, while a fourth district, the Borgarþing, was established somewhat later.54 The Gulaþing and Frostaþing were the most important; these assemblies, located at Gulen and the Frosta ­peninsula, were both accessible by sea.55 Although Ari is silent on the home districts of his selected settlers, the compilers of the landnámabækur reveal that the colonists were drawn from different parts of Norway, including present-day Agder,56 Sogn og Fjordane,57 Sunnmøre,58 Hordaland,59 Rogaland,60 Nordmøre,61 Namdal,62 Jæren,63 Hålogaland,64 and Voss.65 Sogn og Fjordane and Hordaland were all under the remit of the Gulaþingslög, the jurisdiction of which was extended in the tenth century to include Agder, Rogaland and Sunnmøre.66 Hålogaland, Namdal and Nordmøre each came under the jurisdiction of the Frostaþingslög. 54

55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

íf xxvi, p. 163. Magnus Rindal, ‘Laws,’ in Medieval Scandinavia, eds Pulsiano and Wolf, p. 385, dates the Gulaþing and Frostaþing to c.950, the Eiðsivaþing to c.1020 and the Borgarþing some time later. Sverre Bagge, From Viking Stronghold to Christian Kingdom: State Formation in Norway c.900–1350, (Copenhagen, 2010), p. 180, dates the Eiðsivaþing to the reign of Óláfr Haraldsson and the fourth law district, the Borgarþing, to the mid-­twelfth-century. Writing in the mid-twelfth century – if we accept Ekrem’s dating – the author of the hn observed that “a large number of inhabited parts between the seaboard and the mountains, such as Valdres, Hallingdal and the other settlements [...] are subject to ­Gulatingslag” (hn, p. 59). Björn Sigfússon, ‘Full goðorð og forn og heimildir frá 12. öld,’ Saga, 3 (1960), p. 61. While the practice of establishing assemblies at locations that facilitated boat access continued in Iceland (for example, Kjalarnesþing, Þingnes, Þórsnesþing, Hegranesþing), the decision to locate the Alþingi at Þingvellir marks a departure from this Norwegian practice. íf i, pp. 153, 156, 187, 278, 390. íf i, pp. 188, 196, 246, 356, 372. íf i, pp. 180, 324. íf i, pp. 338, 276. ha, p. 6, describes Ingólfr as being “from the province which is called Hǫrðaland.” íf i, pp. 152, 176, 275. íf i, p. 328. íf i, pp. 384, 346, 252. íf i, pp. 130, 244. íf i, pp. 257, 272, 273, 282, 332, 348. íf i, pp. 310, 368. Laurence M. Larson, The Earliest Norwegian Laws: Being the Gultathing Law and the Frostathing Law (New York, 1935), p. 7.

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A standardized ‘Law of the Realm’ did not exist in Norway until the reign of Magnús lagabœtir (1263–1280).67 The Icelandic colonists’ experience of norskur venjuréttur (Norse customary law) therefore lacked uniformity. Precisely what differences prevailed between the Gulaþingslög and Frostaþingslög in the tenth century remains unclear. In their preserved thirteenth-century versions these codes reveal some variation in their treatment of inheritance, wergild payments and outlaws.68 It is possible, but by no means demonstrable, that similar discrepancies existed in the tenth century and the variety of legal traditions that existed in Norway was likely replicated in Iceland in the first generation following the island’s colonization. The colonists brought their knowledge and experience of þings to Iceland where they inaugurated similar institutions.69 According to Ari, before the creation of a uniform code of law and the foundation of the Alþingi, an early assembly had been established at Kjalarnes.70 This þing was attended by Þorsteinn Ingólfsson, the son of Ingólfr Arnarson, together with an undisclosed 67 68

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Helle Vogt, The Function of Kinship in Medieval Nordic Legislation (Leiden, 2010), p. 44. For the different treatment of inheritance across these law-codes, see NgL i, pp. 48–49 [Ældre Gulathings-Lov, Ch. 103–105], pp. 205–207, 210–211 [Ældre Frostathings-Lov, viii, Ch. 1–15; ix, Ch. 8, 9]. These provisions are also cited by Vogt, Function of Kinship, p. 160. The variation in wergild across the codes is discussed by Torben Anders Vestergaard, ‘The System of Kinship in Early Norwegian Law,’ Mediaeval Scandinavia, 12 (1988), 160–193; Lars Ivar Hansen, ‘The Concept of Kinship According to the West Nordic Medieval Laws,’ in How Nordic are the Nordic Medieval Laws?, eds Ditlev Tamm and Helle Vogt (­Copenhagen, 2005), pp. 170–201; and Vogt, Function of Kinship, pp. 143–150. For outlaws, see NgL i, p. 170 ­[Ældre Frostathings-Lov, iv, Ch. 41]. In this way, the settlers were replicating a process already undertaken in the Orkneys, Man, the Faeroes, and Dublin. Gillian Fellows-Jensen, ‘Tingwall, Dingwall and Thingwall,’ in Twenty-Eight Papers Presented to Hans Bekker-Nielsen on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday 28 April 1993 (Odense, 1993), pp. 53–67; Alexandra Sanmark, ‘The Case of the Greenlandic Assembly Sites,’ Journal of the North Atlantic, 2 (2009), p. 178. The earliest textual reference to a þing is found in Chapter 19 of Rimbert’s Vita Anskarii. For further see Vita Anskarii auctore Rimberto, ed. G. Waitz (Hannover, 1884), pp. 39–44. íf i, p. 8. Excavations outside Reykjavik may have uncovered the site of the Kjalarnes assembly. For further see Guðmundur Ólafsson, ‘Þingnes by Elliðavatn: The First Local Assembly in Iceland?’, in Proceedings of the Tenth Viking Congress, Larkollen, Norway, 1985, ed. James E. Knirk (Oslo, 1987), pp. 343–349. For the development of Kjalarnes in the Icelandic Free State period, see Davide M. Zori, ‘From Viking Chiefdoms to Medieval State in Iceland: The Evolution of Social Power Structures in the Mosfell Valley’ (PhD diss., University of California, 2010). According to the landnámabækur and Eyrbyggja saga another early assembly, a heraðsþing, was established by Þórolfr mostrarskeggi at Þórsnes. For further, see íf i, p. 125; íf iv, p. 10.

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number of unnamed chieftains.71 These individuals are likely to have been men who had settled either within or close to Ingólfr’s land-claim and their descendants. The Kjalarnes assembly may have been little more than a private þing established to serve the needs and ambitions of Þorsteinn Ingólfsson.72 As far as Ari, or, more precisely, as far as his purposes were concerned, ­Þorsteinn appears to have been this assembly’s most important member and the only individual he names. This explicit reference to Þorsteinn may also have been intended to establish the connection with the Gulaþingslög, for it was this code that obtained in the home district of his father, Ingólfr Arnarson. Ari’s reference to the assembly at Kjalarnes categorically fixes a number of points in the legal mythology of the Icelanders. The first of these is that the son of the island’s first settler is involved with the island’s earliest assembly. This is stated explicitly. Ingólfr’s land-claim and ancestors are elevated as a result, not simply because he and his family were at the head of the Icelandic accounts of the landnám, but because he and his family were also involved in the island’s early institutional history. Their key role was acknowledged in the title of allsherjargoði or ‘supreme chieftain,’ which was bestowed on ­Þorsteinn and later goðar who held what had been his goðorð. The duty of the allsherjargoði, which was to hallow the Alþingi at the opening of the assembly, emphasized the privileged position and legal legacy of Iceland’s first family.73 The island’s settlement and legal mythologies thus converge and reinforce one another. Ari, as we have seen, was at pains to link his account of the island’s settlement and early history to Norway. Accordingly, Norwegian antecedents were emphasized over all others. The situation was likely more nuanced than Ari’s account suggests, however, and it is tempting to speculate that the reason for the omission of references to other origins and traditions was that these simply did not ‘fit’ with the Norse-centric environment Ari was constructing. By placing Íslendingabók’s account alongside that of a chapter on Ingólfr from Melabók, preserved in the Þórðarbók version of Landnámabók, it becomes ­apparent that  the island’s early legal environment may have been more diverse  than that described by Ari. In particular, the Kjalarnes assembly appears to have been exposed to a greater variety of legal traditions than solely Norse ones. 71 72 73

íf i, p. 8. The Bällsta runestone suggests that private þings existed in Scandinavia. For further, see Brink, ‘Law and Legal Customs’, pp. 90–91, 109–110. íf i, pp. 8, 46. The legal qualifications of the next generation were also assured by ­Þorsteinn’s son, Þorkell máni, who served as lawspeaker.

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A reading of Melabók implies that a Hebridean-Gaelic element may have infused the Kjalarnes assembly. The text reveals that this early þing was founded by Þorsteinn Ingólfsson, who did so on the advice of Helgi bjóla and Örlygr Hrappsson.74 While this statement establishes the legal pedigree of the ­assembly – it was convened by the son of the island’s first settler on the recommendation of two grandsons of Bjǫrn buna75 − it also draws attention to the involvement of individuals who had been exposed to different legal traditions in the assembly’s inauguration. The son of Ketill flatnefr, Helgi bjóla departed for Iceland af Suðreyjum (from the Hebrides), before spending his first winter on the island as a guest of Ingólfr. His land-claim, which he made at Kjalarnes with Ingólfr’s approval, connects him to the island’s first settler and its first assembly.76 This relationship was copperfastened with Helgi’s marriage to Ingólfr’s daughter, Þórnýju.77 Örlygr was Þórðr skeggi’s brother and Helgi’s cousin; he had been fostered by a Hebridean bishop called Patrek and sailed to Iceland with the materials necessary to construct a church.78 Although Helgi and Örlygr had been exposed to different legal and religious practices, these were clearly not perceived as being synonymous with a significant ideological incompatibility as both men became integrated into the kin alliance network and political landscape that sprang up around Ingólfr. To what extent, if any, more variegated traditions were expressed in or through the Kjalarnes assembly is, however, unclear. What is apparent, however, is that while these connections could be mentioned in the later accounts of the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur, they did not fit into Ari’s Norse prototype which omits any vestige of a culturally Gaelic or non-Norse presence in its account of the island’s early legal history. In order for this early assembly to function, its members must have recognized and understood a code of law, or adhered to some legal custom. Yet no mention is made by either Ari or the compilers of the later landnámabækur 74

75 76 77 78

íf i, p. 46: “Þorsteinn Ingólfsson lét setja fyrstr manna þing á Kjalarnesi, áðr alþingi var sett, við ráð Helga bjólu ok Ørlygs at Esjubergi ok annarra viturra manna, ok fylgir þar enn sǫkum (þess) því goðorði alþingishelgun.” íf i, Ættarskrár ii and IIIa. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk menning, I, pp. 112–120, stresses the role played by the descendants of Bjǫrn buna in the island’s early legal history. íf i, pp. 50, 51. íf xiv, p. 3. íf i, pp. 52, 54 (S15); 53, 55 (H15). According to Kjalnesinga saga, Örlygr “var írskr at allri ætt” (íf xiv, p. 3) but despite this attribution, he is welcomed into the political community that organized itself around Ingólfr and his land-claim. It is significant that Kjalarnes, the area around Ingólfr’s land-claim, was associated with both an early assembly and an early church at Esjuberg.

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as to what law was in force within the jurisdiction of this assembly.79 Whatever customs were observed must have been familiar to its members, and we might reasonably speculate that the legal customs that did obtain were either the same or similar to those that had operated in Ingólfr’s Norwegian home district. These practices were likely to have become hybridized as they were adjusted to deal with specific situations that presented in Iceland. Even if the area around Kjalarnes and Ingólfr’s land-claim subscribed to the same practices, settlers who had departed for Iceland from other regions of Norway and made their homes in other parts of the island may have been familiar with slightly different legal customs. It is probable, then, that different venjuréttur operated in different parts of the recently colonized island. This state of affairs may have resulted in a degree of legal confusion.80 In order to develop into a truly cohesive community, a single code of law, under which all the island’s inhabitants were united, was required. Significantly Ari states that it was only when the country was “víða byggt orðit” (settled widely) that this particular need arose.81 The first law-code may have been intended to regulate conflicts and address areas of concern for the larger land-claimants. This necessity probably tallied with the increasingly frequent re-assignment of land within large land-claims, a process well attested to in the landnámabækur.82 It was only when land sales began to take place and when land became alienated beyond the immediate bounds of families or homogenous groups from particular areas of the ‘old country,’ or when late arrivals found that the only land they could acquire was at some remove from the holdings and protection of their kin, that settlers came face-to-face with unfamiliar legal practices or norms. Under these circumstances, the benefit of a unitary law-code must soon have become obvious. A uniform system of law, together with its institutional underpinnings, the þings and Alþingi, allowed for family support to be enjoyed by extended kin, who gathered together annually to prosecute cases in what was essentially a public arena. Individuals, no longer adrift in a sea of strangers, could gain redress for their grievances. The law, then, was a potent tool and symbol of social unity.

79 80

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The Þórsnes assembly is connected to a court system, suggesting that some law was in force in this area (íf i, p. 125). íf i, p. 12. Uncertainty about receiving fair treatment under the law – in this instance at an assembly where there would little chance of support – lay behind the conflicts that preceded the division of the country into Quarters. íf i, p. 6. These claims include those of Ingólfr, Auðr, Helgi enn magri and Skalla-Grímr.

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The selection of the Gulaþingslög as the basis for the island’s first law-code is implicitly presented by Ari as an entirely deliberate one. A Norwegian ­law-code like the Gulaþingslög was the natural point of reference for the islanders, the most powerful and well-connected of whom sought to obtain a legal model with which they were familiar.83 The Gulaþingslög became an important element in later reconstructions of the early Icelandic past in the Íslendingasögur. This law-code obtained in the western and south-western districts of Norway, regions which, according to saga tradition, exhibited the greatest resistance to Haraldr hárfagri’s attempt to unify the realm under his sole aegis. The sagas, as we saw in the previous chapter, represent a later tradition about this particular Norwegian king for whom there is very little reliable evidence. Ari’s neutral portrayal of Haraldr in Íslendingabók suggests that his reference to the Gulaþingslög as the legal model of choice was not made in order to draw a contrast between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ societies of the settlers. The later compilers of the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur, however, had a different understanding of the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway, one that was situated within the tense contemporary relationship between the two lands. Their accounts of the homeland their ancestors had abandoned and the society founded by the free and independent-spirited landnámsmenn and ‘built’ by the law became the foil for ofríki Haralds. Of course, the possibility of the islanders being familiar with and using the Gulaþingslög as an exemplar is contingent on its existence at the time of the landnám. While Larson has confidently asserted that the Gulaþingslög did indeed exist in the early tenth century,84 Jakob Benediktsson is slightly more circumspect, suggesting that the amalgamation of states that formed the Gulaþing may have occurred at the same time as the settlement of Iceland.85 Writing in the thirteenth century, the author of Heimskringla ascribes a tenth-century date to the Gulaþingslög. He credits Hákon góði with the promulgation of this law, commenting that the Norwegian king “was a man of great wisdom [who] placed great stress on the law. He laid down the law of the Gulaþing with the advice of Þorleifr inn spaki and he laid down the law of the Frostaþing with the advice of Earl Sigurðr and other men from Trondheim.”86 Hákon was the youngest son of Haraldr hárfagri and had been raised as a Christian by his foster-father, King Æthelstan.87 He is believed to have ruled between 83 Einar Arnórsson, ‘Árið 930,’ p. 19. 84 Larson, Earliest Norwegian Laws, p. 7. 85 Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis,’ p. 170. 86 íf xxvi, p. 163. 87 íf xxvi, p. 145.

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c.934–961; his attempt to convince the land’s magnates to accept Christianity faced so much resistance that he apostatized.88 The connection Heimskringla makes between Hákon and the Gulaþingslög suggests that this law had not been enacted until 934 at the earliest, at least four years after Úlfljótr is reputed to have returned to Iceland.89 This dating also makes it difficult to connect the Gulaþingslög with either Ingólfr Arnarson or the law that obtained in the Kjalarnes assembly. It may well be the case, however, that the author of Heimskringla dated this kingly law-giving too late. Equally, he may have been trying to incorporate a key element of Icelandic legal history into the framework of the konungasögur, suggesting that legislation that was enacted in Norway arrived in Iceland at a similar time, thereby reinforcing the political relationship between the two countries. The matter of whether or not this law did exist in the late ninth century or early tenth century is not a particular obstacle to the present discussion; what is important is that this specific legal province and the law-code that obtained there had relevance for a twelfth-century author documenting his island’s earliest legal history. This relevance, as we shall see, may be due to this code’s association with two individuals: Þorleifr inn spaki and Óláfr inn helgi Haraldsson. Óláfr, who ruled Norway between 1015 and 1028, became posthumously known as rex perpetuus Norvegiæ after his canonization in 1031. He is connected to an earlier version of the Gulaþingslög than that preserved in the Codex Rantzovianus. He was also remembered as being a particularly important figure in the Iceland–Norway relationship. In later tradition, Óláfr Haraldsson was considered a great legislator and became associated with several laws, including the Ólafslög, which is the focus of the next chapter. Óláfr was also credited with completing the conversion of Norway. He embodies the connection between king, law and Christian tradition.90 The figure of this king, who converted his people, was associated with a series of laws and became a saint after his death, presented a particularly potent combination of qualities. It is possible, but by no means demonstrable, that Ari’s reference to the Gulaþingslög was intended to link the first Icelandic law-code with a Norwegian law-code associated with the king who became Norway’s patron saint and around whom a cult was quickly established. Issues of memorability, then, may have underpinned Ari’s mention of the Gulaþingslög, which itself became associated with an exemplary figure, Óláfr Haraldsson. 88 89

íf xxvi, pp. 171–173. Landnámabók reports that Ulfljótr remained in Norway for three years (ÍF I, 313) while Íslendingabók implicitly suggests that the Úlfljótslög was in force prior to 930 (ÍF I, p. 8). 90 Vogt, Function of Kinship, p. 99.

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Whether or not a form of the Gulaþingslög existed before 930, it would be impossible to draw a direct comparison between the law that Ari claims was the model for the first Icelandic law-code and the Úlfljótslög. Both codes, in their tenth-century forms, are irrecoverable. The Gulaþingslög was not committed to written form until the twelfth century while the oldest full manuscript version, the Codex Rantzovianus, is from the mid-thirteenth century.91 Prior to its written composition and preservation in the Codex Rantzovianus, the law-code had already undergone several revisions.92 By contrast, the Úlfljótslög was never preserved in textual form.93 The earliest written Icelandic law-code, the Hafliðaskrá, was not codified until the winter of 1117–18, and has not survived.94 It is therefore extremely difficult to ascertain the degree of similarity between the Gulaþingslög and Úlfljótslög, or to discover whatever similarities may have existed between the Úlfljótslög and Hafliðaskrá. The preserved law-codes of Grágás, however, are very different to the preserved Gulaþingslög. In its treatment of inheritance and penalties, the Gulaþingslög exhibits “patrilineal preferences whereas Grágás operates on a more bilateral basis”.95 Outwardly the apparent familiarity many of the colonists had with the law in the western and south-western districts of Norway might indicate that a common thread ran through both the Gulaþingslög and the Ú ­ lfljótslög, but how essentially different these laws were from one another is open to speculation.96 The process of consultation that appears to have taken place once Úlfljótr returned to Iceland likely fundamentally altered the laws in Iceland from those that had obtained in Norway.97 By the time of the Hafliðaskrá, the Icelandic laws had assumed an intrinsically Icelandic character and had become tailored to the island’s specific requirements. Ari provides little information about Úlfljótr. He is said to have been the father of Gunnar, the common ancestor from whom the people of Djúpadalr in Eyjafjörður claimed descent.98 We do not know at what point Úlfljótr 91

This manuscript, believed to have been compiled c.1250–1330, is in a West Norwegian dialect. Rindal, ‘Laws,’ p. 385. 92 Vogt, Function of Kinship, pp. 73–74. 93 Three legal articles believed to have been from this first law-code were discussed earlier in this chapter. A summary of some of these arguments can be found in Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, pp. 158–177. 94 íf i, p. 23. 95 Elisabeth Vestergaard, ‘Kinship and Marriage: The Family, its Relationships and Renewal,’ in Scandinavians from the Vendel Period, ed. Jesch, p. 61. 96 Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Landnám og upphaf allsherjarríkis,’ p. 171. 97 íf i, p. 7. 98 íf i, p. 7.

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arrived during the landnám or, indeed, from which Norwegian district he came. Given his memorable role in early Icelandic legal history and, by default, the creation of the island’s polity, it is remarkable that Úlfljótr is not included among Ari’s selected landnámsmenn.99 Perhaps this omission is simply due to the fact that he was not an ancestor of one of the island’s first bishops. Unlike Ingólfr, Ketilbjǫrn, Auðr and Helgi enn magri,100 Úlfljótr is not described by Ari as norrænn; he is a maðr austrœnn, an ‘eastern man.’101 The designation of his geographical origins on the basis of a cardinal point is consistent with those of Ari’s selected colonists. The term maðr austrœnn, often rendered in the sagas as austmaðr, could be used to denote a Norwegian as well as any man, Scandinavian or otherwise, who came from the East, whether the eastern region of Norway, Sweden, or further east again. The Norwegian connotations of the term are discussed in Chapter 5, but in this instance it is worth stating that the inclusion of the eastern suffix in connection with Úlfljótr could, in fact, point to some uncertainty as to his precise geographical origins. Given the precise nature of his task, which was to research a specific named code of N ­ orwegian law, it is reasonable to assume that in this case maðr austrœnn should be interpreted as meaning Norwegian and, more precisely, a Norwegian from one of the fylki that came under the remit of the Gulaþingslög. It is unlikely Úlfljótr would have been sent to research a law-code with which he would have been unfamiliar. Charged with the apparently onerous responsibility of bringing the law to the island from Norway, Ari discloses nothing about the criteria that were likely to have governed Úlfljótr’s selection nor, indeed, his qualifications for the task he was assigned. His selection was likely made on the basis of his legal expertise or knowledge, but this is not stated explicitly. It is possible, of course, that he acted in the capacity of something akin to the Norwegian lǫgmaðr (lawman) for one of the pre-Alþingi assemblies, possibly even that at Kjalarnes. He certainly held the office of lawspeaker following the creation of the Alþingi.102 It is worth placing the decision to send Úlfljótr abroad within the context of what we know of the Kjalarnes assembly from Ari and the compilers of the landnámabækur. We may speculate that Þorsteinn Ingólfsson, together 99 100 101 102

íf i, p. 266. Úfljótr’s son, Gunnar, was married to the daughter of Helgi enn magri. íf i, p. 6. Ari’s final settler, Hrollaugr, is linked to Møre, where his father was earl. if i, pp. 6–7. íf i, p. 9. Ari indicates that Úlfljótr served in this capacity prior to Hrafn Hœngsson, who held the office between 930 and 949. He writes that “Því nær tók Hrafn lǫgsǫgu Hœngssonr landnámamanns, næstr Ulfljóti” (“Around this time Hrafn Hœngsson took up the office of lawspeaker after Úlfljótr”).

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with the other assembly members, lay behind the proposition to dispatch a ­suitably-qualified individual to a specific Norwegian district to research the legal customs in force there, with subsequent resolutions being taken on his return to ratify the country’s first law-code and establish the Alþingi. This interpretation suggests that the legitimation of the Icelanders’ status vis-à-vis Norway was of concern for these individuals and, by extension, their contemporary descendants. Although Ari’s account of the creation of Icelandic law is laconic at best, one of its more striking aspects is the apparent isolation of Úlfljótr in this process. On the basis of Íslendingabók’s version of events, Úlfljótr alone went to Norway to research a law-code in force there. In this respect, Ari’s account has echoes of Mosaic imagery. How precisely Úlfljótr then ‘took’ the laws from Norway, however, remains unclear. In the tenth century these laws were preserved orally.103 It may have been the case that Úlfljótr’s task was not simply to create the law from a Norwegian prototype, but rather to undertake a formal study of the customs, practices and legal traditions of the Gula law district.104 Quite how this research may have been undertaken is also uncertain. If he was not originally from this law district, we might wonder whether Úlfljótr lived amongst the men of the Gula province for a number of years, attending their assemblies and watching their proceedings.105 If the ‘law’ taken by Úlfljótr was a series of traditions and legal customs together with procedural guidelines, then it may have been a transportable commodity. The integrity of that commodity, however, was dependent on memory. Whatever the reason for his selection or his level of expertise, Icelandic law did not suddenly come into existence once Úlfljótr returned from Norway. Íslendingabók is very precise in the manner in which it reveals that each of the named individuals in the law-giving/law-making process had been charged with his own specific task. Úlfljótr was responsible for ‘bringing’ the laws from Norway to Iceland; his duties were discharged in full once he returned to Iceland whereupon the laws were ‘given’ to another memorable individual, a man called Þorleifr inn spaki (the wise). Þorleifr was responsible for what we 103 Sigurður Líndal, ‘Sendiför Úlfljóts,’ p. 7. 104 íf i, p. 7, reveals the Úlfljótslög was “en þau váru flest sett at því sem þá váru Golaþingslǫg” (was for the most part modeled on the laws of the Gulaþing were). The tailoring of this model to Icelandic conditions by Þorleifr and others suggests that the Norwegian code, although deliberately selected as an exemplar, was never going to be adopted wholesale; rather it would provide a template for the creation of a set of Icelandic laws. 105 In Iceland the lawspeaker was charged with reciting one-third of the laws annually at the Alþingi (Grágás Ia, p. 209). According to ÍF I, p. 313, Ulfljótr remained in Norway for three years.

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might call the ‘Icelandification’ of the Gulaþingslög: it was on his advice that the Norwegian laws were amended or supplemented with additional material in order to adapt them to island life.106 With this Ari fixes another point in the islanders’ legal mythology: the law was inherently flexible so that it could be tailored to the island’s specific environment, requirements and changing circumstances. According to Íslendingabók, the earliest Icelandic laws were configured according to a trilateral system of composition, one that was based on research, consultation and compromise, or amendment. The consultative nature of this legal process has parallels elsewhere. There are similarities between Ari’s account of these processes of consultation and amendment and an episode in the Gesta Swenomagni regis et filiorum eius et passio gloriosissimi Canuti regis et martyris (The Deeds of King Swenomagnus and of his Sons and the Passion of the Most Glorious Canute, King and Martyr). This work was composed by Ailnoth, a Benedictine monk from Canterbury, who spent twenty-four years in Odense, Denmark, where, in 1086, the Danish king Knútr had been killed by his subjects. For the purposes of the present discussion Ailnoth’s description of an assembly at Viborg is an interesting digression. His account describes how men from Jutland gathered together in order to discuss matters pertaining to the law, its impartiality, objectivity and validity. These processes of consultation resulted in making the laws ‘firm’ (stabilitum fuerit).107 It is possible, but by no means provable, that this account may have influenced Ari’s own memory of how early legal processes functioned in Iceland. He consulted the Roskilde Chronicle when he visited Scandinavia; is it possible that he may also have consulted Ailnoth’s work? Ailnoth, who wrote “for a wide Danish audience,”108 is believed to have written his history in the opening decades of the twelfth century,109 a dating that places its composition within a similar timeframe to Íslendingabók. There is an additional connection between Ailnoth and Iceland. His vita was one of the first works by an external 106 íf i, p. 7. 107 Ailnoth, p. 111. 108 Michael Gelting, ‘Two Early Twelfth-Century Views of Denmark’s Christian Past: Ailnoth and the Anonymous of Roskilde,’ in Historical Narratives, ed. Garipzanov, p. 43. 109 Danske helgeners levned, ed. Hans Olrik (Copenhagen, 1893–94), p. 19. Olrik believes the work was composed sometime between 1120 and 1124. More recently, Gelting, ‘Denmark’s Christian Past,’ pp. 38–39, has argued for an earlier dating, between 1111–1112. For Ari’s Scandinavian visit, see Aksel E. Christensen, ‘Om kronologien i Aris Islendingabok og dens laan fra Adam af Bremen,’ in Nordiske Studier: Festskrift til Chr. Westergård-Nielsen på 65-årsdagen den 24. november 1975, eds Johs. Brøndum-Nielsen, Peter Skautrup and Allan Karker (Copenhagen, 1975), pp. 23–34.

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commentator to refer to the islanders as ‘Icelanders.’ He remarks upon the religious practices of Norwegians and Icelanders, distinguishing the islanders from their Norwegian counterparts on the basis of their language.110 It is therefore tempting to speculate that knowledge of Ailnoth’s oeuvre may have influenced Ari’s account on two points: his account of legal consultation processes and the name he used to refer to the island’s inhabitants. If we now return to Íslendingabók’s brief account of the island’s first lawcode and the involvement of Þorleifr inn spaki in the process of island-based consultation, the man himself provides some clues as to why he was charged with the responsibility of amending the laws that Úlfljótr brought back to Iceland. According to saga tradition, he was a wise man and adviser to a number of Norwegian kings: he interpreted Hálfdan svarti’s dream about Óláfr ­Haraldsson and was involved in the composition of the version of the Gulaþingslög promulgated by Hákon góði in the tenth century.111 Þorleifr, then, acted as a legal consultant to a Norwegian king. These laws enjoyed a degree of longevity, for the author of Fagrskinna remarks that “King Óláfr the Saint made use of the better part of those laws.”112 Þorleifr’s relationship with the ­Norwegian kings went beyond his capacity as interpreter and legal adviser: he is said to have freed Haraldr hárfagri from the enchantment that befell him following the death of his wife, Snæfríðr.113 Just as the Gulaþingslög obtained its currency in Ari’s narrative from its association with Óláfr inn helgi, the Úlfljótslög was legitimized by the involvement of Þorleifr inn spaki. The inclusion of this individual – a man who was responsible for making the Norwegian laws a good ‘fit’ with island conditions and who, in a compendium of kings’ sagas from the early thirteenth century, was associated with the rule of three different Norwegian kings in the ninth and tenth centuries – further suggests that early Icelandic authors wished to link the island’s institutional framework with that of their ancestral homeland in the first instance and then to the Norwegian kings. The notion of the king as law-giver was ­established in medieval political thought; the roots of this ideology went back to ­Justinian, Constantine and Theodosius and from there to God, who, through Moses’s promulgation of the ten commandments, was the ultimate, divine legislator. In the other direction, the king as law-giver continued from antiquity and

110 Ailnoth, pp. 83–84; Danske helgeners levned, ed. Olrik, p. 30. 111 íf xxvi, pp. 90–91, 163. These events are also described in Fagrskinna: íf xxix, pp. 57–58, 80. 112 íf xxix, p. 80. 113 íf xxvi, pp. 126–127.

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reached its apotheosis under the Carolingians and their successors.114 In medieval Scandinavia, kings also became associated with law-giving.115 Could it be that Ari and the author of Heimskringla both set out to legitimize the first Icelandic law-code and, by extension, the island’s polity, in Norwegian (and European) eyes by associating it with an individual who had acted or was ‘remembered’ as having acted in the capacity of counsellor to the Norwegian king and advising on king-given Norwegian laws? Of course, we are relying on Ari’s accuracy and selective re-telling of events for our knowledge of how Úlfljótr ‘took’ the laws from Norway and ‘brought’ them to Iceland where Þorleifr and other unnamed wise men advised on their contents. There is the possibility that while these individuals may have been involved in the law-making/law-giving processes, their actual roles have been embellished. In the case of Úlfljótr, his three-year stay in Norway tallies with the precise timeframe within which the Icelandic lawspeaker was expected to recite all the island’s laws.116 The Icelandic annals indicate a level of disagreement on the extent of Úlfljótr’s involvement in the island’s early history and on the date of his return from Norway. Konungsannáll dates his return to 927,117 while Skálholts-Annaler records the law coming to Iceland in 929.118 Lögmanns-annáll does not even mention Úlfljótr or his enterprise, though it does state that in 928, Hrafn was appointed lawspeaker.119 The Annales Reseniani also mention Hrafn’s appointment and fail to make any reference whatsoever to Úlfljótr.120 Neither Þorleifr nor his association with the first Icelandic law-code is mentioned in any of these annals. Indeed his presence in saga tradition, which associates him with three different Norwegian kings − Halfdán svarti, Haraldr hárfagri and Hákon góði – casts doubt on his role. It is difficult to reconcile the lack of information about these individuals with the importance of their endeavour. The most consistent feature in Ari’s account is the limited information given about these men. This does not mean that the traditions surrounding Úlfljótr and Þorleifr are entirely fabricated, but the 114 Vogt, Function of Kinship, pp. 96–97. 115 Saxo Grammaticus considered Frothi to be the model law-giver and documents part of his laws in his chronicle. Sven Aggesen also records a series of laws, including ‘The Law of the Retainers or Of the Court.’ See further The Works of Sven Aggesen, Twelfth-Century Danish Historian, trans. Eric Christiansen (London, 1992), pp. 31–43. 116 íf i, p. 313. Grágas Ia, p. 209. The ‘three year’ rule underpins a number of legal provisions, including those to do with lesser outlawry and claiming inheritances. 117 ia, p. 102. 118 ia, p. 176. 119 ia, p. 248. 120 ia, pp. 14, 15.

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lack of information we have about these individuals does not rule out this possibility. Ari’s brief and laconic references to Úlfljótr, Þorleifr and Þorsteinn locate the memory of the ‘bringing of the laws’ and earliest assembly within a mythological framework. Once the ‘figures of memory’ of the island’s legal mythology have been established by Ari, who is likely entirely deliberate in his selection of memorable figures who are conducive to the construction of more expanded narratives, the links between these individuals can be developed and explored in the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur. These texts reveal the intricate web of familial relationships that existed between key individuals and demonstrate in irrefutable terms how the legal mythology and settlement mythology are intertwined, creating an ‘ultimate’ foundation narrative that at once accounts for the Norwegian origins of the island’s settlers and its society. The family of a famous Norwegian hersir, Bjǫrn buna, are important actors in this foundation narrative and Sigurður Nordal has been a particularly strong advocate of the theory that the island’s early legal and constitutional development was forged by Bjǫrn’s descendants.121 The compilers of the landnámabækur were at pains to account for the actions and deeds of this individual’s descendants in their accounts of the settlement. Sturla Þórðarson writes that Bjǫrn buna was a “famous chieftain in Norway” and that “nearly all of the most prominent men who came to Iceland are descended from Bjǫrn.”122 According to Sturlubók, Bjǫrn had three sons: Ketill flatnefr, Hrappr and Helgi. Sturla describes these brothers as being “famous men and much will be said about their descendants in this book.”123 It is Bjǫrn’s descendants who connect the settlement and legal mythologies of early Iceland together. Ketill flatnefr was the father of Helgi bjóla, Bjǫrn enn austrœni and Auðr;124 his son-in-law was Helgi enn magri Evyindarson.125 Both Auðr and Helgi enn magri are included in Ari’s selective account of the landnám,126 while Helgi bjóla, as mentioned earlier, was one of the men involved with the establishment of the early þing at Kjalarnes and son-in-law to Ingólfr. He was also a grandson of Bjǫrn buna. Ingólfr is said to have given land to three grandchildren of this important Norwegian hersir: Helgi bjóla Ketilsson, Þórðr skeggi Hrappsson and Örlygr 121 122 123 124 125 126

Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk menning, I, pp. 112–120. íf i, p. 46. íf i, p. 46. íf i, pp. 50, 122, 136. íf i, p. 248, 250. íf i, p. 6.

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gamli Hrappsson.127 Þórðr skeggi, who settled in Mosfell, is described in a number of literary sources as a man of noble ancestry: both of his grandfathers are described as hersar by Hauksbók.128 He secured his status in Iceland by marrying his daughters to other powerful landnámsmenn – his daughter Helga, for instance, was married to one of Ari’s selected landnámsmenn, Ketilbjǫrn enn gamli Ketilsson.129 The ‘law-taker,’ Úlfljótr, purchased land at Lón from Þórðr skeggi.130 Úlfljótr was related by marriage to another of Ari’s settlers: his son, Gunnar, was married to the daughter of Helgi enn magri.131 The ‘law-maker,’ Þorleifr, was the son of Hǫrða-Kári132 and Úlfljótr’s uncle.133 A granddaughter of Hǫrða-Kári and “dóttir Ketils bifru Hörða-Kárasonar,” Hróðný, is named in the fourteenth-century narrative Flóamanna saga as being the mother of Leifr Hrómundarson, Ingólfr’s blood-brother.134 This last link further emphasizes the interconnectivity of the legal and settlement mythologies, establishing a blood relationship between Leifr, Þorleifr and Úlfljótr. Significantly, none of these connections is laid bare by Ari in Íslendingabók. It is important to emphasize, however, that while other, more recent sources may contain information above and beyond those details provided by Ari, this neither means that Íslendingabók’s account is fictitious nor that those additional details are later fabrications. Ari’s work, as we have seen, was short, precise and deliberate; he did not intend recording every detail.135 In the case of the familial connections of Úlfljótr and Þorleifr and their relationships with other important landnámsmenn, Ari may have considered these to have been sufficiently well-known that he did not believe them worth reiterating; alternatively, he may have decided that they did not make a significant contribution to Íslendingabók’s purposes and were more relevant to his work on the settlement, the original Landnámabók. A third possibility is that Íslendingabók may have been seen (or read) as a ‘companion-piece’ to other works documenting

127 These individuals feature in a number of accounts in addition to the Sturlubók and Hauksbók texts of Landnámabók. All three are mentioned in Kjalnesinga saga. Helgi bjóla also appears in Eyrbyggja saga, while Þórðr skeggi is referred to in both Brennu-Njáls saga and Þórsteins þáttr uxafóts. 128 íf i, p. 49 (H11). 129 íf i, p. 48. See also (H11). 130 íf i, p. 49. This transaction is also mentioned in Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts in Flb i, p. 249. 131 íf i, p. 266. 132 íf i, p. 7. 133 íf i, p. 313; Flb I, p. 249. 134 íf xiii, p. 233. 135 Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, p. 57.

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the settlement. This hypothesis would account for what we might see as its genealogical deficiencies. Íslendingabók offers a mythologized account of how the island’s first lawcode was brought to Iceland from Norway constructed around memorable figures. However, even if the story of Úlfljótr and Þorleifr amounts to little more than a series of ‘invented traditions’ and retrospectively constructed genealogical relationships, it is clear that Ari considered these individuals to have been at the core of the island’s first law-code or, more precisely, that he deemed them suitable individuals around whom to construct his account of the memory of how the first laws came to the island. As such, he fixed them as ‘figures of memory’ in the early history of the Icelanders; they were the constellation around which the island’s legal mythology was plotted, a mythology that was fleshed out by the later compilers of the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur, who explored the genealogical relationships between Úlfljótr, Þorleifr and other important early figures. It is Sturla and Haukr who provide the additional genealogical information that links these settlers with the island’s early legal history, fusing the settlement and legal mythologies together. The association of the law-giver and law-maker with the island’s first settler and the family of Bjǫrn buna suggest that, by the twelfth century, the landnám and the island’s first law-code were both understood as being part of an interwoven and seamless foundation narrative. Not only did this web of connections serve to legitimize the status of the law at a time of domestic unrest, it reinforced the independent status of the Icelanders and established their legitimacy as a polity. Each subsequent retelling added an additional layer of reinterpretation to the story as these retellings were used to fulfil the historical needs of the islanders. One such need is clearly expressed in the epilogue to Styrmisbók, material which may in fact be derived from the original Landnámabók.136 Its author states that for the islanders to dispel the criticism of their origins by útlendum mǫnnum (foreign men) and align themselves with allar vitrar þjóðir (all wise/civilized peoples) they need to know about their own origins.137 In short, educated continental elites had to be convinced/persuaded of

136 Styrmir Kárason is believed to have recorded his settlement account around 1220, suggesting that the identity of the native aristocratic order was being challenged at this time. For the textual relationships between the versions of Landnámabók, see Jón Jóhannesson’s Gerðir Landnámabókar. He considers the eftirmáli at pp. 203–206. See also the comments of Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli’, pp. xcvi–cvi. 137 íf i, p. 336.

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Iceland’s claim to be a civilized community. This concern was in part articulated through a programmatic series of texts, including Íslendingabók and the landnámabækur, each of which contributed to the construction of a suitable and ‘civilized’ written history, a version of events that was acceptable to Icelanders and Scandinavian elites alike.138 The settlement of the island by a largely Norse population would have led to its perception as another Viking colony. The presence of slaves in Iceland and the active participation of Vikings in the slave trade, whether in the capacity of raiders or traders, may well have contributed to the belief that the island had indeed been settled af þrælum eða illmennum (by slaves and criminals).139 When the fact that the island had neither king nor hereditary nobility is added to the mix, it is easy to see how Icelanders could have been seen as somewhat lacking in sophistication. Medieval Europeans may well have supposed that, without the ruling class to sponsor history-writing and with no succession of kings or nobles around which to construct its history and to provide that history with a spine, the Icelanders lacked pedigree and therefore had no right to claim a position amongst other societies.140 The Icelanders therefore tried to demonstrate that they had as much right to autonomy as their neighbours. To this end they suggested links with Norwegian (Oddaverjar and Sturlungar) and Danish (Oddaverjar) nobility.141 If these connections, however tenuous, linked the society of independent islanders with nobles in Continental Europe, then similar links between the islanders, Norwegian heroes and kings legitimated their earliest law. Mere association was elevated to justification. That this activity occurred in the late twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries when Iceland began to come under increased pressure from the Norwegian crown prior to its capitulation in 1262/64 is significant, and suggests that the islanders wanted to be seen as being on an equal footing as their Norwegian counterparts.

138 Kurt Schier, ‘Iceland and the Rise of Literature in ‘Terra Nova’: Some Comparative Reflections,’ Gripla, 1 (1975), 168–181, discusses the different types of literature that arose in Iceland as being reactions to this need. 139 íf i, p. 336. For slavery in Iceland, see Ruth Mazo Karras, Slavery and Society in Medieval Scandinavia (New Haven, 1988). 140 Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘The Development of Old Norse Textual Worlds: Genealogical Structure as a Principle of Literary Organisation in Early Iceland,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 92, 3 (1993), 372–385. 141 Clunies Ross, ‘Textual Worlds,’ pp. 380–382; Guðrún Nordal, ‘Snorri and Norway,’ in Reykholt som makt- og lærdomssenter i den islandske og nordiske kontekst, ed. Else Mundal (Reykholt, 2006), p. 80.

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The Acceptance of Christianity

The story of the conversion of the Icelanders is described in a number of ­Icelandic narratives composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.142 Different elements of this key moment in early Icelandic history are emphasized in these accounts: the respective lives of Óláfr Tryggvason – Oddr Snorrason’s Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar and the conflated Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta – both situate their accounts within the context of the Norwegian king’s evangelizing efforts; Kristni saga stresses the missions to Iceland; and Brennu-Njáls saga includes a number of chapters describing the efforts of Þangbrandr and the islanders’ acceptance of Christianity in its history of a fifty-year feud.143 Ari’s account of the conversion in Íslendingabók emphasizes the island’s legal independence and the importance of upholding the law. His laconic version of events gives us an instance of conversion by means of a group decision – a memorable instance of conflict resolution that took place after processes of discussion and consultation. The named individuals involved in this process are then linked to the island’s first law-givers and the ­Norwegian king, as well as the island’s eleventh-century ecclesiastical leaders: the Haukdælir. The belligerent actions of the Norwegian king, Óláfr Tryggvason, are given as the stimulus for the change of faith. The action then shifts from Norway to Iceland with the return of Gizurr inn hvíti and a convicted outlaw, Hjalti Skeggjason, to the Alþingi, where a religious, ideological and legal schism is averted only by the wisdom of the heathen lawspeaker,

142 The conversion of Iceland and its impact has been discussed extensively by scholars including Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak; Dag Strömbäck, The Conversion of Iceland, trans. Peter Foote (London, 1975); Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization; Anders Winroth, The Conversion of Scandinavia: Vikings, Merchants, and Missionaries in the Remaking of Northern Europe (New Haven & London, 2012). Useful themes are also explored by Jenny Jochens, ‘Late and Peaceful: Iceland’s Conversion Through Arbitration in 1000,’ Speculum, 74, 3 (1999), 621–655; Anne Heinrichs, ‘The Search for Identity: A Problem after the Conversion,’ Alvíssmál, 3 (1994), 43–62; and Gro Steinsland, ‘The Change of Religion in the Nordic Countries – A Confrontation between Two Living Religions,’ Collegium Medievale, 3, 2 (1990), 123–135. It is important to draw a distinction between ‘Christianization’ – the way in which Christian ideas, practices and norms penetrated native culture, resulting in gradual change over time – and ‘institutional conversion,’ the process by which rulers were baptized, temples destroyed, churches built and ecclesiastical infrastructure established. 143 All of these sources describe the event but not the impact of the event. References to the conversion of the Icelanders are also made in the ha and hn.

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Þorgeirr Þorkelsson, whose impassioned speech draws a contrast between the landnámsmenn and immoderate kings.144 The source for Ari’s conversion account was his tutor, Teitr Ísleifsson. He was the son of the island’s first bishop, Ísleifr Gizurarson, and the grandson of Gizurr inn hvíti. He also had testimony from eyewitnesses to the conversion.145 On the basis of these familial connections and corroborative information, it is reasonable to conclude that the essence of Ari’s account is based in plausible tradition even if it has come down to us in the form of a well-rounded myth. This memorable and largely uncontested tale describing the islanders’ change in faith has resulted in a particular perception of that event. The purpose of the following discussion is not to give a blow-by-blow account of the Christianization of the Icelanders, but instead to explore the place of the law in this process, and also to scrutinize some of the key figures involved for what they might suggest about how the early relationship between Norway and Iceland was remembered. According to Ari’s account, the conversion was instigated by the Norwegian king, Óláfr Tryggvason, who sent a priest, Þangbrandr, to preach to the islanders.146 Although unsuccessful in his quest to convert the entire population, a number of important individuals are named by Ari as having received baptism: Hallr Þorsteinsson, Hjalti Skeggjason and Gizurr inn hvíti, in addition to “many other chieftains.”147 These men were all influential goðar in their own right and instrumental to future events at the Alþingi.148 It is probable that the chieftains saw their acceptance of Christianity as an opportunity to extend their economic and political influence.149 In the absence of a king, the acceptance of baptism by these individuals points to conversion from the top down, even if many resisted at this stage. Two different stages of conversion are described: the work undertaken by foreign missionaries in the first instance, followed by 144 íf i, pp. 14–18. 145 íf i, p. 15: “Svá kvað Teitr þann segja, es sjalfr vas þar.” 146 íf i, p. 14. Oddr Munkr describes Þangbrandr as “saxneskan at kyni” in his saga of Óláfr Tryggvason, while Kristni saga refers to another early missionary priest, Stefnir Þorgilsson. íf xxv, p. 244; íf XV2, pp. 15–17. 147 íf i, p. 14. According to Kristni saga, Þangbrandr baptized Hallr, together with his household, as well as Gizurr, and Hjalti Skeggjason. íf XV2, p. 19. These men are reported as having received baptism by Theodoricus, who names another recipient: Þorgils of Ǫlfus. ha, pp. 15–16. 148 Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, p. 63. 149 Chapter 41 of Laxdæla saga reveals significant trading possibilities for those who accepted baptism (íf v, pp. 124–126), while Chapter 50 of Egils saga gives an account of primesigning at King Æthelstan’s court (íf ii, pp. 128–129).

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the baptism of influential local leaders.150 In this respect, Ari’s approach to the conversion story follows a well-established pattern. The intemperate reaction of the Norwegian king to the failure of his emissary’s mission adds a political dimension to Ari’s account, as the king interprets the islanders’ rejection of the faith as a personal affront and is incited to threaten bodily harm against those Icelanders then present in Norway.151 In Oddr Snorrason’s account of the same events, the king makes good on this threat: not only does he have the Icelanders apprehended but “some he plundered, some he killed, and some he maimed.”152 Whereas Ari’s version suggests that all Icelanders in Norway were seized by the king, Oddr’s report indicates that it was an indeterminate number, likely those closest to where the king was at that time. No indication is given in Íslendingabók as to the identity of these unnamed Icelanders. Ari does, however, implicitly suggest that they were not allowed to return to Iceland. Although he does not describe these men as hostages or having been incarcerated, they are said to have been released following the arrival of Gizurr and Hjalti in Norway.153 The lack of explicit reference to hostages in Ari’s account is an important point for, as we shall see, the Icelandic conversion has been interpreted by some scholars as ‘conversion by force.’ The hostage motif, such as that employed in Heimskringla, occurs in later saga tradition, and often identifies each of the hostages as the son of an influential chieftain in each of the island’s Quarters.154 The Christianization of Norway is tied to a series of kings who were converted abroad before returning to their homeland with their new faith where they then had varying degrees of success in their respective attempts to convert their subjects.155 The English connection is a particularly important one in this 150 Winroth, Conversion, p. 104, describes the three main stages in the conversion of Scandinavia. 151 íf i, p. 15. 152 Oddr Snorrason, Saga of Olaf Tryggvason, p. 90; ÍF XXV, p. 245. 153 íf i, p. 15. The king had the power to refuse the Icelanders permission to leave Norway. See, for instance, Chapters 40 and 41 of Laxdæla saga (íf v, pp. 113–126). 154 íf xxv, p. 245; íf xxvi, p. 347. These men are named as Kjartan Óláfsson, Halldórr Guðmundarson, Kolbeinn Þórðarson and Svertingr Rúnólfsson. This echoes the island-as-a-whole territoriality expressed in Ari’s landnám account, suggesting the Norwegian king’s threat was made against all Icelanders. 155 The conversion of Norway has been discussed at length elsewhere, including Winroth, Conversion; Peter Sawyer, ‘Ethelred ii, Olaf Tryggvason, and the Conversion of Norway,’ Scandinavian Studies, 59, 3 (1987), 299–307; Birgit Sawyer and Peter Sawyer, ‘Scandinavia Enters Christian Europe,’ in Cambridge History, ed. Helle, pp. 150–153; Sverre Bagge and Sæbjørg Walaker Nordeide, ‘The Kingdom of Norway,’ in Christianization and the Rise

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process.156 According to saga tradition, Haraldr hárfagri’s son, Hákon, had been fostered by the English king, Æthelstan.157 He was a Christian but the faith faced such resistance from the Norwegian chieftains during his reign (934–961) that he later apostatized. Hákon was succeeded by Haraldr gráfeldr (961–970), who had been baptized in Northumberland.158 Óláfr Tryggvason (995–1000) was baptized in England; his godfather was the English king, Æthelred.159 Óláfr had raided England and extracted a considerable tribute payment as a result; these monies were used by him to finance his assault on the Norwegian crown. Óláfr’s conversion was a term of the peace settlement negotiated after his raid on England.160 This provides an additional context within which the conversion of the Icelanders might be framed: their change of faith, outwardly at least, might appear to be the manifestation of their desire to protect the lives of their countrymen in Norway from the ire of the Norwegian king. Under these conditions, the islanders’ conversion might also be seen as a type of peace settlement or surety of their safe travel in Norway as much as a desire to prevent the distant king from meddling in their affairs. Óláfr Tryggvason’s reaction and instigation of the islanders’ change of faith resulted in ‘conversion by force,’ according to Anders Winroth, who believes that interpretations of the conversion have greatly underestimated the pressure applied by the Norwegian king.161 Heimskringla certainly draws a connection between the Norwegian kings and violence, particularly in those instances where the king is disobeyed, while royal violence in the name of Christianity is of Christian Monarchy: Scandinavia, Central Europe and Rus, c.900–1200, ed. Nora Berend (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 121–166. 156 This English connection was important for the development of early Icelandic historical writing, which adopted the vernacular almost from the outset. See, for instance, Paul Bibire, ‘North Sea Language Contacts in the Early Middle Ages: English and Norse,’ in The North Sea World in the Middle Ages: Studies in the Cultural History of North-Western Europe, eds Thomas R. Liszka and Lorna E.M. Walker (Dublin, 2001), pp. 88–107. 157 íf xxvi, pp. 145–146. Hákon was also known by the nickname Aðalsteinsfóstri. For a discussion of his influence on Norwegian kingship, see Gareth Williams, ‘Hákon Aðalsteins fóstri: Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Kingship in Tenth-Century Norway,’ in The North Sea World, eds Liszka and Walker, pp. 108–126. 158 íf xxvi, p. 203. 159 íf xxvi, pp. 266–267, describes how Óláfr’s conversion and evangelizing was prophesized by a hermit (einsetumaðr) he encountered on one of the Scilly islands. 160 Winroth, Conversion, p. 115. Although Heimskringla makes no reference to his baptism being part of a peace settlement, this is the context in which this event is recorded in the entry for 994 in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. For further, see The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, trans. and ed. Michael Swanton (London, 2000), pp. 128–129. 161 Winroth, Conversion, p. 155.

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a recurring motif in the compendium’s accounts of Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Haraldsson. These were two of the four Norwegian kings who, to varying degrees, attempted to exert an influence over Icelandic affairs. In their respective efforts at wiping out heathen practices in Norway, both Óláfrs are described as maiming and killing their opponents.162 These historical memories of the tenth and eleventh centuries are preserved in a thirteenth-century text, but it is possible that they may contain an accretion of an earlier understanding of the role played by the Norwegian kings in conversion. We can, however, only speculate as to when this particular historical memory may have entered popular tradition. According to Ari’s account, while the actions of the Norwegian king may have encouraged the Icelanders to become Christian, the ultimate decision to do so was theirs and theirs alone. In Íslendingabók’s version of events there is no sense that Óláfr Tryggvason imposed Christianity on the islanders. Ari makes no mention of the Norwegian king keeping Icelanders hostage in Norway, while the threat Óláfr made against those Icelanders in Norway was swiftly nullified by the intervention of Hjalti and Gizurr.163 Their expression of “extraordinary optimism” that they would be successful in converting the islanders was, as Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson argues, likely a retrospective interpretation heavily coloured by the eventual outcome.164 A possible interpretative framework for this “extraordinary optimism” is suggested by Adam of Bremen’s account of Adalbert’s intention to personally travel to “the expanse of the north.” Adam writes that the archbishop was persuaded not to undertake his journey by the Danish king, who advised Adalbert that the Northern peoples could be more readily Christianized per homines suae linguae morumque similium165 (by men similar to them in language and customs) than by those unfamiliar with their 162 For example, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar describes the killing of wizards (Chapters 62, 63), the killing of Járnskeggi (Ch. 69) and later Eyvindr kinnrifa and Rauðr inn rammi. Óláfs saga helga contains references to the move made by the king against the farmers of Hålogaland (Ch. 105, 109) before launching campaigns of terror against their counterparts in Upplǫnd (Ch. 111) and Dalir (Chs. 112, 113). These episodes are from íf xxvi, pp. 311–312, 317–318, 322–323, and 324–328; íf xxvii, pp. 176, 179–181, 182–183, and 183–190. For a discussion of Heimskringla as a warning to the Icelanders, see Magnús Fjalldal, ‘Beware of Norwegian Kings: Heimskringla as Propaganda,’ Scandinavian Studies, 85, 4 (2013), 455–468. 163 íf i, p. 15. íf xxvi, p. 332: “Now all the Icelanders who are here now are willing to be baptized; and we shall find the means to see that Christianity is accepted in Iceland. The sons of many important/influential men from Iceland are here and their fathers shall assist us in this matter.” 164 Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson, Under the Cloak, p. 87. 165 gh, p. 220 [Lib. iii, cap. lxxii].

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ways. The reference to language aside, for the islanders shared their language with their Norwegian cousins, Hjalti and Gizurr were certainly more au fait with the islanders’ customs than Þangbrandr had been. That being said, the islanders had rejected the attempts of Stefnir Þorgilsson, an Icelandic missionary sent by Óláfr Tryggvason.166 Following a series of impassioned arguments and counter-arguments at the Alþingi, Icelandic society was split into two factions, each declaring themselves ýr lǫgum or ‘out of law’ with the other.167 According to the Scandinavian concept of society as ‘built’ by the law, the religious impasse would have resulted in the division of the island into two legal states, each of which adhered to its own laws based solely on religious preference. To secure the integrity of the old jurisdiction, the law would have to be preserved, for if the law were broken, then society would be destroyed. The definitive link between law and religion is expressed clearly by Þorgeirr Þorkelsson who had been appointed to rule on the matter. He insists “all shall have one law and one faith” and proclaimed in the laws “that all men should be Christian.”168 Equilibrium is restored: Christianity is voluntarily accepted by the islanders and proclaimed in their law, the cornerstone of their society. Central to Ari’s account is the Icelanders’ voluntary acceptance of Christianity. Weber has observed that on this point Ari’s version of events actually conforms to a well-attested missionary leitmotif represented in other conversion accounts.169 The voluntary acceptance of Christianity by the individual “constitutes a dogmatically important element of baptismal theory [...] essential for the validity of an individual’s conversion”170 and became an important element in later arguments for Icelandic independence from Norway.171 Ari’s version of the conversion draws a series of contrasts between Norway and Iceland. The volatile, wrathful Norwegian king, who believed himself to have been insulted by the Icelanders, is contrasted with the pragmatic, reasoned lawspeaker, Þorgeirr. The demands of an individual are weighed up against the social processes of a society; a society of different laws and one 166 Stefnir Þorgilsson was the great-grandson of the fair-weather Christian landnámsmaðr Helgi bjóla. Stefnir is mentioned in íf xxv, p. 309, and an account of his mission is contained in íf XV2, pp. 15–17. 167 íf i, p. 16. 168 íf i, p. 17. 169 Gerd Wolfgang Weber, ‘Intellegere historiam: Typological Perspectives of Nordic Prehistory (in Snorri, Saxo, Widukind and others),’ in Tradition og historieskrivning, eds Hastrup and Meulengracht Sørensen, pp. 95–141. Ari’s knowledge of Bede and Adam of Bremen may have provided his model. For further see Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. xxii–xxvi. 170 Weber, ‘Intellegere historiam,’ p. 116. 171 Weber, ‘Intellegere historiam,’ p. 118.

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faith is set against a society united under one law and one religion. Each of these elements emphasizes the legal and political independence of the Icelanders. The deliberate construction of his account around a number of named individuals enabled Ari to fuse his conversion account with his account of the landnám and, through his emphasis on the law and the secular dimension of the change in faith, to incorporate it into his legal mythology. The way in which Ari’s account sheds light on the tenth-century political organization of the Icelanders is of paramount importance to Orri Vésteinsson. Íslendingabók states that, despite the conversion of important chieftains, the anti-Christian faction remained in the majority.172 The inability of the Christian faction to simply impose its will on the islanders at large is suggestive of a political immaturity, particularly given the “clear-cut nature of the issue” and the potential it offered for gaining “political capital.”173 Whatever about their numerical inferiority, those that championed the faith comprised a significant and politically important minority and an interrelated minority at that. I would suggest that the political prestige on offer was indeed realized and gained, by one family at least, for Ari’s account of the conversion is synonymous with the story of one family’s success: the Haukdælir. Kings were the main promoters of conversion across medieval Scandinavia. As a kingless and autonomous island in the North Atlantic, Iceland was exceptional in this regard. In the case of the islanders, a deliberate and, on the basis of Ari’s description of this event, solemn decision was made to accept Christianity. The Icelandic conversion is ultimately embodied in the wisdom and decision-making of the heathen lawspeaker, Þorgeirr, who may or may not have conducted some sort of divination or shamanistic ritual ‘under his cloak.’174 The Icelandic conversion or, more accurately, accounts of the Icelandic conversion were more complex constructions than those that attributed a people’s conversion to a king. That being said, the role of the Norwegian king was important to the literary tradition of the conversion. The figure of Óláfr Tryggvason and his association with the Icelandic conversion served a distinct purpose for Ari. His portrayal of Óláfr as an evangelizing monarch is markedly different to Adam of Bremen’s description of the same king in his Gesta Hammaburgensis, composed c.1075. The roles Adam assigned to the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish kings reflect the relationships 172 íf i, p. 14. 173 Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization, p. 19. 174 ÍF XXV, p. 247, reports that the Christian faction persuaded the lawspeaker to speak the laws with half a mark of silver. Strömbäck, Conversion of Iceland, pp. 30–31, writes that this was a bribe and not a fee for services rendered.

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these monarchs had with the archdiocese of Hamburg-Bremen, which had been designated as the “mission of the north.”175 Óláfr Tryggvason was a man whose faith, according to Adam, at least, was doubtful.176 Not only had he been baptized by a missionary bishop who was not affiliated to Hamburg-Bremen,177 the Norwegian king had also rejected the authority of this see. Ari was aware of Adam’s work and possibly even consulted it when he visited Scandinavia.178 Nevertheless, it was important for him to rebut the charge of doctrinal and ecclesiological heterodoxy that Adam of Bremen had made against Óláfr and so he altered his account in order to provide what was, in his view, a more accurate version of events.179 This was especially significant as Óláfr linked the island’s secular traditions, embodied in the native goðar (at least one of whom claimed to be related to the king), and its spiritual future.180 The conversion of the Icelanders marks a return to the spiritual status the island had previously enjoyed when the papar had been present. We might suppose that, as a result of various types of contact with Christians abroad and the settlement of a number of Christians and individuals of mixed faith in Iceland in the landnámsöld, conversion to Christianity for many marked less of an absolute break with old practices than a shift within a religious tradition that had been likely hybridized through varying degrees of contact and exposure. Social networks were highly influential when it came to conversion and many of the early converts were interrelated in some way. A number of significant social and political relationships also existed between these individuals and the Norwegian king. On this basis we might suggest that religious choice was predicated on the preservation of a network of interpersonal attachments with kindred and friends, relationships characterized by social and economic interests. Any religious choice must sustain, maintain or increase the stability of these relationships.181 If an individual enjoys security – familial, financial and political – he will not perceive a need to convert; if, however, he is influenced by the experiences he has had abroad, such as the exposure to new religious 175 Peter Sawyer and Birgit Sawyer, ‘Adam and the Eve of Scandinavian History,’ in Perception of the Past, ed. Magdalino, pp. 39–45. 176 gh, pp. 100–101 [Lib. ii, cap. xl]: Adam of Bremen suggests that Óláfr had apostatized. 177 gh, p. 98 [Lib. ii, cap. xxxvii]. 178 Christensen, ‘Om kronologien i Aris Íslendingabok,’ pp. 23–34. 179 Sawyer and Sawyer, ‘Adam and the Eve,’ p. 48. 180 For this important function of Óláfr see Lars Lönnroth, ‘The Baptist and the Saint: Odd Snorrason’s View of the Two King Olavs,’ in International Scandinavian and Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber, ed. Michael Dallapiazza, (Trieste, 2000), p. 257. 181 Rodney Stark and Robert Finke, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley, 2000), pp. 118–119.

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traditions, particularly if there is a social and/or economic benefit for doing so, then he is likely to adopt a new faith. Certainly the social and political implications or advantages of conversion are borne out by the Icelandic actors in Ari’s narrative. Although he makes no mention of the island’s early Christians, such as Örlygr or the early mission of Stefnir Þorgilsson, those he does name in his conversion account were central to the Icelandic Church. Most of those who were baptized early were related to one another and a number of significant social and political relationships existed between these individuals and the Norwegian king. Hallr of Síða was a descendant of Hrollaugr; he was an ancestor of Bishops Jón and Magnús, Sæmundr Sigfússon and Ari himself.182 Hallr also had a personal relationship with Óláfr Tryggvason: their respective grandfathers, Hrollaugr and Haraldr hárfagri, had been friends and that friendship is said to have continued even after Hrollaugr’s migration to Iceland. Hjalti Skeggjason was the son-in-law of Gizurr inn hvíti;183 he also acted in a diplomatic capacity for Óláfr Haraldsson in his dealings with the Swedish king.184 Íslendingabók is remarkable for its circularity: the settlement mythology, legal mythology and change of faith, each of which had a Norwegian component, are all interconnected. The point at which these mythologies intersect is through the key figure of Gizurr inn hvíti. He was the descendant of another of Ari’s selected landnámsmenn, Ketilbjǫrn enn gamli Ketilsson.185 This line of descent not only connected Gizurr to the Norwegian royal household – according to Kristni saga and Heimskringla, Gizurr and Óláfr Tryggvason were second cousins186 – it also linked Gizurr to Bjǫrn buna by virtue of Ketilbjǫrn’s marriage to Helga, the daughter of Þórðr skeggi.187 Þórðr skeggi, as mentioned earlier, was the individual who sold land to Úlfljótr.188 This relationship connects Gizurr to the individuals involved in the island’s first law-code. Gizurr was also the father of the island’s first bishop, Ísleifr, whom he sent to Herford to receive a Continental clerical education.189 It appears that Gizurr at least perceived 182 183 184 185 186

íf i, pp. 317–318. íf i, pp. 77, 79. íf xxvii, pp. 90–100. íf i, p. 26; íf i, Ættarskrár xxxv. íf XV2, pp. 28–29. íf xxvi, p. 328: “Gizurr hvíti, sonr Teits Ketilbjarnarsonar, en móðir hans var Álof, dóttir Bǫðvars hersis Víkinga-Kárasonar. Bróðir Bǫðvars vars Sigurðr, faðir Eiríks bjóðaskalla, fǫður Ástríðar, móður Óláfs konungs.” 187 íf i, pp. 48, 49. 188 íf i, pp. 312, 49. 189 Orri Vésteinsson, Christianization, p. 22, considers Gizurr’s actions specifically designed to enable his son to obtain advantage over non-native missionary bishops.

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the potential socio-political and economic benefits afforded by Christianity. These benefits were reinforced and consolidated further when Ísleifr married Dalla who, according to Landnámabók, was a distant cousin of Óláfr inn helgi Haraldsson.190 Ísleifr’s grandson was Hafliði Másson, one of the individuals involved in the codification of the Icelandic laws and after whom the island’s first written law-code, the Hafliðaskrá, was named. Where Þorleifr inn spaki acted as legal adviser to a number of kings, Gizurr provides a royal link to the conversion through his consanguinity with Óláfr Tryggvason. In this way, the narratives of both law and change of faith were linked to Norwegian kings. These royal connections are an integral part of the literary tradition of the myths surrounding the island’s first law-code and the conversion. They endowed both enterprises with a certain legitimacy  – to ­outsiders, at least – even if Ari upheld the Icelandic autonomy of each. A Norwegian ‘moment’ or stimulus may have underpinned both but the outcomes were absolutely Icelandic. Norway ‘transferred’ the laws and new faith to Iceland but it was the Icelanders themselves who voluntarily accepted them and made them their own. The web of familial links between these enterprises, the Norwegian king and their Icelandic actors all point to the importance of the Haukdælir in the island’s early history. The involvement of this family with the conversion and incipient Icelandic Church, together with their links to Norwegian royalty, endowed them with symbolic capital their thirteenth-century rivals, the Sturlungs, could only wish for. Conclusion The tension that one might expect to find in the treatment of the relationship between Iceland and Norway is missing from Ari’s account of the island’s early legal and political developments. Íslendingabók has been appraised as a moment of “self-declared ethnicity”191 and part of a programmatic series of ­vernacular texts asserting Icelandic identity. This assessment is problematic, for although Ari is at pains to link the inception of the island’s human habitation and its society to Norway, he remains remarkably neutral in his presentation of Norway.192 Íslendingabók is certainly a key component within a concerted Icelandic effort to document the island’s history and key events; in 190 íf i, pp. 216, 230. 191 Hastrup, Island of Anthropology, p. 124. 192 Ari moves away from his neutral stance when he records Þorgeirr’s remarks on the warring Danish and Norwegian kings. íf i, p. 17.

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this respect it is indeed part of a programme and a vernacular programme at that, but it is debatable whether that programme was designed to establish an irrefutable Icelandic identity. Perhaps it is more appropriate to imagine the Icelandic identity that Íslendingabók establishes as an unintended consequence or product of the text’s desire to establish the historical basis for the relationship between Norway and Iceland. Rather than emphasizing difference, Ari’s account draws attention to the similarities between Iceland and Norway. A shared past is stressed. Far from desiring to shake off their Norwegian heritage and practices in an effort to stake their claim to an autonomous existence, free from the oppression of royal power, the settlers deliberately harnessed aspects of their pre-settlement lives to their new environment. The first law-code is modelled on the law in force in the western and south-western districts of Norway, while the earliest assemblies, such as those at Kjalarnes and Þórsnes, were likely also structured according to norms familiar to the landnámsmenn. There is thus no reason to equate the early foundations of the Icelandic Commonwealth with the desire of the landnámsmenn to create something ‘new’ or ‘unique.’193 We might read Ari’s account as suggesting that despite the accepted (and uncontested) Norwegian origins of its people, law and early þings, each of these elements gradually assumed a decidedly ‘Icelandic’ character courtesy of the islanders themselves and their island’s specific conditions. This is seen in the processes of research, consultation and revision inherent to the creation of the Úlfljótslög, while the location of the Alþingi, a site chosen because of its accessibility over land, marks a departure from the Norwegian conceptualization of þingstaður (assembly sites) as places requiring access by sea.194 If these were markers of the islanders’ legal independence, then Ari’s conversion account copperfastened the Icelanders’ autonomy through its description of their voluntary acceptance of baptism and decision to uphold the law. Their debt to the Norwegian experience of the colonists and to Norwegian models was furthermore balanced by the Icelanders’ lack of a king and their adoption of a system of self-governance that developed in a way alien to their Norwegian counterparts and forced them to do politics in a different way.

193 I am in agreement here with Gunnar Karlsson, ‘Was Iceland the Galapagos of Germanic Political Culture?’, Gripla, 20 (2009), p. 84. He concludes (p. 89) that the distinctiveness of Icelandic “political culture [...] was above all due to the distance from royal power”. In the following chapter I argue that this distance was, in fact, not so great. 194 Björn Sigfússon, ‘Full goðorð,’ p. 61.

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While the adoption of Norwegian models by the landnámsmenn does indeed outwardly suggest that their laws and assemblies owed little to the inventiveness of the colonists, their desire not to owe fealty to an overlord or king and their attempts to fill this vacuum through legal recourse indicates novel thinking on some level. Perhaps the landnámsmenn never formally decided not to have a king. Ari recognized that kings could serve a number of useful purposes, however, and linked the memory of the processes of law-giving/law-making and the conversion to landnámsmenn and their descendants to a connection with Norwegian royalty. This association served to legitimate the island’s first law-code and its change of faith, endowing both with authority. But those islanders related to Norwegian royalty and mentioned at key moments in the island’s early history were and remained recognizably Icelandic, emphasizing Icelandic autonomy. A Norwegian stimulus or model may have underpinned the first law-code and conversion but Ari’s account shows how the islanders emphatically claimed ownership of both. His story of how the laws and Christianity were imagined to have come to Iceland from Norway is rooted in the island’s own social processes. These processes, crucially, were independent from those that existed in Norway. The islanders’ configuration of an ostensibly Norwegian law-code to meet their own requirements and their voluntary acceptance of the faith indicated that they were not the subjects of the Norwegian king, but suggested that they were to some extent lodged in a familiarly Norwegian context. This familiar context was in no small part down to Ari’s communication, perhaps overcommunication, of the Norse element. Throughout his remarkably brief reference to the first law-code and assembly, Ari overemphasizes the Norse component of each. In a more decisive manner than his brisk treatment of the papar in his account of the settlement, Ari gives no suggestion that island society was based on anything other than Norse building blocks. It is only by placing his account within the context of the landnámabækur that the more diverse legal traditions of the landnámsmenn come to light. Equally, however, his presentation of the island’s first law-code and its sequencing between the full settlement of the country and inauguration of the Alþingi suggests that he considered the possession of a law-code to be not only an integral societal building block, but also a means of demonstrating the Icelanders’ fidelity to a wider tradition and context. The overall framework of his legal ­mythology proved stable; the various innovations made to it by later authors served to intertwine the legal and settlement mythologies together and contributed to the gradual, cumulative development of an ultimate foundation narrative from these mutually compatible traditions. At the beginning of each

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stood Norway, reinforcing the historical connections between the two lands. Once a Norwegian fragment, Iceland began to develop along a different legal trajectory through a series of clearly delineated social processes, gradually becoming something ‘unrecognizable’ to its ancestral homeland.195

195 Louis Hartz, The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, and Australia (New York, 1964), pp. 4–5.

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The Ólafslög The previous chapter discussed how the introduction of institutions and a single law-code defined early Icelandic society in legal and jurisdictional terms. The law operated within a clearly demarcated space and its developing uniformity must have enhanced the cohesion and homogeneity of island society. In the absence of a king or any form of executive authority, the goðar, most of whom claimed noble Norwegian descent, directed island life. The power of these individuals rested upon mannaforráð and whatever support they could muster from their þingmenn, all of which was underpinned by their financial means, political ambition and reputation for sagacity. Icelandic ambitions to survive and exist as a kingless society were helped in no small measure by the fact that the country’s boundaries were never in doubt. The island’s perimeter was fixed and defined its ultimate product: the Icelanders. Safely located on the periphery of Europe, the islanders saw no need to include any provisions within their laws to manage the threat posed by an external aggressor. Notwithstanding its marginal location, Iceland enjoyed a close affinity with Norway and the “diaspora-like dissemination” of the wider Norse community.1 Linked by their linguistic, cultural and socio-legal similarities, these later skattlǫnd were linked to the centre (Norway) through their relationships with the king and the shipping routes used by Norwegian merchants.2 Within the ‘transnational space’ that existed between Iceland and Norway, ­‘transnational networks’ connected the periphery to the centre, allowing for 1 Steinar Imsen, ‘Introduction,’ in Norwegian Domination, p. 14. For diasporas in the Viking Age, see Lesley Abrams, ‘Diaspora and Identity in the Viking Age,’ Early Medieval Europe, 20, 1 (2012), 17–38; and Judith Jesch, The Viking Diaspora (London, 2015). 2 The term skattland (pl. skattlǫnd) is used to denote an overseas territory of the Norwegian realm that paid ‘skatt’ or tribute to the king. The compound ‘skattland’ first appears in Sturla Þórðarson’s Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (c.1264–65) and occurs frequently in the normative sources from the 1270s. The Norwegian kingdom comprised Norway (innan landz) and the ­island communities of Orkney, Shetland, the Faeroes, Iceland and Greenland (skattlǫnd). The Hebrides and Isle of Man were only included as ‘tributary islands’ in the hn. For further on the skattlǫnd, see Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘The Norse Community,’ in Norwegian Domination, ed. Imsen, pp. 13–29; Wærdahl, Incorporation, pp. 69–71; Steinar Imsen, ‘From Tributes to Taxes,’ in Taxes, Tributes and Tributary Lands, ed. Imsen, pp. 13–29; and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Becoming a “skattland”: The skattgjafir process between the kings of Norway and the Icelanders c.1250–1300,’ pp. 115–131, in the same volume.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004336513_006

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social ­engagement between Icelanders and Norway as well as the circulation and exchange of ideas and other cultural symbols.3 In 1262/64 Iceland submitted to the Norwegian crown, bringing to an end the Commonwealth period. Almost four hundred years had passed since the island’s settlement in the late ninth century, four centuries in which Icelandic society had (largely) governed its own affairs. Prior to the island’s ‘official’ entry into the Norwegian realm, however, varying degrees of interest in Iceland had been expressed by a number of Norwegian kings. One monarch, in particular, is remembered as having established the political relationship between Norway and Iceland on a more formal basis. This memory relates to what might be the only foreign policy statement of the Commonwealth era – an eleventh-century treaty supposedly negotiated between two constituent parts of the Norse community: the Icelanders and the Norwegian king, Óláfr inn helgi Haraldsson (r. 1015–1028). This agreement, which has been preserved in the Konungsbók text of Grágás, is known as the Ólafslög (Óláfr’s law); it offered the islanders the opportunity to “secure for themselves some minimal human rights” when in Norway.4 Based on a tripartite structure of legal, economic and military prerogatives, the covenant’s constituent articles concerned the rights of the Norwegian king and Norwegians in Iceland, and the rights of Icelanders in Norway. It was remembered as having been formulated at a key stage in the Iceland–Norway relationship, the moment when the island began to move from autonomy towards voluntary dependency – cultural, economic and ­political – on the centre. Within the context of this book, the Ólafslög provides a tantalizing glimpse into the multi-faceted relationship between Iceland and Norway and how that relationship was remembered in the mid-thirteenth century. Not only is it suggestive of something approximating a discernible Icelandic foreign policy in the Free State period, it may represent an early incarnation of a defined policy regarding Iceland on the part of the Norwegian king. It is surely significant that this was associated with a specific Norwegian king, Óláfr Haraldsson, of whose glory Hálfdan svarti dreamed.5 The way the treaty was remembered by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders is indicative not only of their perception of the earlier relationship between Iceland and Norway, but also 3 For a definition of ‘transnational spaces’ see Thomas Faist, ‘Transnational Social Spaces out of International Migration: Evolution, Significance and Future Prospects,’ European Journal of Sociology, 39, 2 (1998), 213–247. 4 Gunnar Karlsson, The History of Iceland, p. 50. 5 íf xxvi, pp. 90–91.

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their desire to reaffirm and protect the ‘historical’ rights given to them by an eleventh-century king, an individual remembered in saga tradition both for his interest in Iceland and law-making. Intriguingly, the Ólafslög has, until recently, generated little academic consideration.6 While this may be due in part to the preferential treatment given to other sources, such as the Íslendingasögur and Grágás, it does not adequately account for why studies of early Icelandic history, with their longstanding emphasis on constitutional history, have sidestepped this political instrument. The Ólafslög is, as we shall see, a problematic source in terms of its background, age and context, but it may also be a textual artefact that predates Ari’s Íslendingabók and, therefore, the oldest historical document of the Commonwealth period.7 Perhaps the reason for the scholarly neglect of the Ólafslög is simply because neither the covenant nor its terms fit with the traditional historical narrative of Iceland. That narrative draws a direct link between the island’s economic and political demise and its submission to Norway in the late thirteenth century. The existence of an earlier and formalized relationship between the two could feasibly cast doubts on some of the reasons for the island’s later decline, while closer engagement with Norway some two hundred years before the island’s submission might suggest that the level of independence enjoyed by Iceland was markedly less than previously believed. The present chapter aims to explore the background, timing and content of the treaty to offer a reconsideration of the early Iceland–Norway relationship and how that relationship was perceived and remembered by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders.

6 The treaty is mentioned by Jón Sigurðsson, Konrad Maurer, Björn M. Ólsen, Bogi Th. Melsteð and Jón Jóhannesson. Sigurður Nordal, Íslenzk menning, I, p. 282, refers to the agreement but does not engage with it despite his belief that Óláfr Haraldsson may have brought the Icelanders to heel had he remained on the Norwegian throne (p. 320). The legal historian, Miller, makes no reference to the covenant in his Bloodtaking, while Byock, Medieval Iceland, p. 119, and “Governmental Order,” p. 30, considers it briefly and then only in the context of consensual governance and rights. Most recently, Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 43–86, advocates interpreting the covenant as a component in the changing relationship between Iceland and Norway in the late thirteenth century. Her arguments are, however, are framed within the context of source criticism and textual dating, and she is not particularly concerned about what the Ólafslög might reveal about the early eleventh-century political relationship between Iceland and Norway or, indeed, the memory of that relationship. 7 Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, p. 134: “og er hann því hið elzta skjal, sem varðveitzt hefur, á norræna tungu í sögu Íslendinga.”

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Early Norwegian Interest in Iceland

The Ólafslög allowed for the formalization of the political relationship between Iceland and Norway from the treaty’s promulgation in the first quarter of the eleventh century until its provisions were superseded by the Gizurarsáttmáli in 1262–64.8 Nevertheless, it would be wrong to suggest that, prior to the negotiation of the Ólafslög, Iceland had remained impervious to Norwegian influence. The Norwegian king had managed to exert some influence over the island’s affairs since the landnámsöld, and his authority, however distant, was perceived as sufficiently potent to affect Icelandic decision-making. This is certainly evident in the accounts of the conversion of the Icelanders given by Ari and the author of Kristni saga, both of whom attributed the stimulus behind the change of faith to Óláfr Tryggvason.9 Following the acceptance of Christianity, the island’s law-code was amended so that previously tolerated heathen observances, such as sacrificing to the gods, the consumption of horse meat and infanticide, were gradually phased out and placed outside the protection of the law.10 Both the change in faith and Ólafslög are suggestive of the Norwegian king’s sway in Iceland in the eleventh century and, in particular, his influence over native law. One version of Landnámabók, Hauksbók, reveals that the king may also have enjoyed influence in tenth-century Iceland. This text recalls an instance of formal contact between the island’s first colonists and the king in its account of how a settlement-age land dispute was referred to Haraldr hárfagri for his mediation and resolution. This depiction of the king is at odds with his portrayal in the Íslendingasögur. The landnámsmenn then – or at least a significant number of them in the Southern Quarter – were remembered as having recognized the Norwegian monarch as the island’s legitimate ­authority, suzerain or at least as an agent capable of making a ruling that would be

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A number of its clauses echo the provisions of the earlier Ólafslög but there are significant differences between the two covenants. For further on the documents of submission, see Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 87–153. íf i, pp. 14–18; íf XV2, pp. 15–17, 27–29. íf i, p. 17; íf xxvii, pp. 73–74, 77 and 214. Ari writes that sacrifices could continue to be made á laun (in secret) but that if witnesses to the event were produced, the sacrificer could be sentenced to lesser outlawry. íf xii, p. 272, refers to the islanders’ ‘legal’ conversion and states that the consumption of horse flesh and exposure of infants were criminalized but that similar concessions were applied to these as to heathen sacrifice. All three practices appear to have been phased out by Óláfr inn helgi c.1016.

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i­ mplemented and obeyed.11 While the historicity of the disagreement and ruling by the Norwegian king are impossible to establish in absolute terms, the inclusion of this episode in Hauksbók suggests that the memory of the historical legal relationship between Iceland and Norway was significant and culturally relevant to fourteenth-century Icelanders. Another event described by the landnámabækur reveals that Norwegians believed they were entitled to claim island-based inheritances. The unsuccessful attempt of Uni, the son of Garðarr who had first discovered the island, to claim his birthright has already been briefly referred to in Chapter 2. Uni’s efforts had been encouraged by Haraldr hárfagri who promised to make him an earl should he manage to bring the island under his control and, by extension, that of the king.12 Although Uni’s attempt to conquer Iceland failed miserably, his claim to the territory was, courtesy of Haukr’s sequencing of the pre-­settlement ‘voyages of discovery,’ a legitimate one based on a point of law. The Norwegian king’s supposed involvement with both Uni and the land dispute are, however, problematic. Some of the difficulties surrounding the historicity of Haraldr hárfagri, a figure around whom twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic authors constructed a number of memorable historical traditions, have already been considered. It should suffice to say that if the existence of a ninth-century ‘King of Norway’ is a contentious issue, then it is even more difficult to establish his alleged involvement in either a settlement-­age land dispute or a failed tenth-century conquest of Iceland. If either, or both, of these episodes were included in the original (and irrecoverable) Landnámabók, they would not only show that close political ties were maintained with Norway from the earliest settlement, they would also indicate that the compilers of the traditions surrounding the landnám were acutely aware of Norwegian interest in and involvement with the island’s domestic affairs from an early stage. One might wonder whether the inclusion of such episodes might have provided a means for thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic authors to point retrospectively to the gradual erosion of the island’s autonomous status and the constant threat Norway posed to that status. What is important for the purposes of the present investigation, however, is that the Norwegian king was remembered as engaging with the island community in a variety of ways from the time of the landnám. He was recalled as being an active agent in the Iceland–Norway relationship and the memories of 11 12

íf i, pp. 337, 339 (H294). The king’s ruling standardized land-claims by prescribing not only the amount of land that could be claimed but also how that land was to be claimed. íf i, pp. 34, 35, 299.

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his agency were culturally meaningful. At worst the preserved memories of the land dispute and Uni’s failed conquest suggest the belief that Norway and her kings were interested in the island; at best they reveal the existence of something resembling a policy, however ad hoc and sporadic, to bring the island into the Norwegian realm proper well before the thirteenth century. Intriguingly, this active Norwegian interest in Iceland is situated in and based around acts of law-giving or points of law. Haukr’s inclusion of references to a land dispute and Uni’s inheritance claim in his Landnámabók are not digressions, rather they flag up a key area of concern: jurisdiction. Haukr, as mentioned before, was a lawman with experience of Icelandic and Norwegian law; he had also served the Norwegian king in a number of roles. While his own interest in law and jurisdictional issues is clear throughout his text, he may have been articulating wider concerns. The incorporation of Norwegian claims to and Norwegian rights in the island imply a degree of concern as to how the relationship between the two countries was perceived and would be perceived in the future. As for the extension of legal and inheritance rights, concerns which, according to Haukr, had existed since the island’s colonization, the Ólafslög provided the ideal opportunity to set down the nature and extent of these réttr.

The Background and Dating of the Treaty

The preserved text of the treaty negotiated between the Norwegian king and the Icelanders reveals the degree of structured and formalized control the king enjoyed, or was believed to have enjoyed, over Iceland and its people from the early eleventh century. Whether the terms of the Ólafslög remained in force from its promulgation until the late thirteenth-century – or were ever in force – is, however, unclear. What is significant is that for the thirteenth-century compilers of the Icelandic law-code, this covenant was associated with a specific king and a particular time. Broadly speaking, the covenant’s constituent articles are broken into two sections: (1) the rights of the Norwegian king and Norwegians in Iceland, and (2) the rights of Icelanders in Norway. It has been stressed throughout that the available documentary evidence for the present study are the products of later centuries and, as a consequence, these texts reflect twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century perceptions of the Icelandic past. While this confluence of past and present arguably makes these texts doubly revealing – for not only do they shed light on how the island’s past was perceived by later authors, they also suggest that a certain image of that past was more desirable than others – it also makes them troublesome. This view may, perhaps, be modified somewhat when it comes to the Ólafslög. One might

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assume that based on the nature of the information it contains – a series of réttr or rights defined in dry, laconic clauses – that the treaty would be less susceptible to the bias of other sources, such as the Íslendingasögur. This is by no means to suggest that the Ólafslög is devoid of nuance or problems. The preserved treaty text sheds no light on what events may have precipitated discussions between the Icelanders and the Norwegian king to define – or redefine – their relationship in the early eleventh century. The sagas, however, suggest a number of stimuli that may have acted as the catalyst for the treaty negotiations. Although composed at some remove from the events described and infused with contemporary concerns, these narratives are also documents of cultural memory, describing and memorializing the past. The origins of the treaty may lie in the Norwegian king’s desire to assert his control over economic affairs. Shipping issues, in particular, seem to have been an area of concern. The Norwegian kingdom, meanwhile, was transitioning towards a “predatory economy” underpinned by a thalassocracy.13 The king had the power to disrupt sea traffic between Iceland and Norway and Óláfr Haraldsson seems to have attempted to exert his control over the Norwegian economy by extending his authority over trade and shipping and the taxes that could be levied on both.14 A negotiated treaty between the two parties could clarify matters for both sides and provide the means by which shipping between the two could be formally regulated. Such regulation would ensure the maintenance of sea travel between the two countries. Laxdæla saga, Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar and Óláfs saga helga all mention travel bans that were imposed on Icelanders present in Norway, preventing them from returning home.15 These bans typically occurred, or, more precisely, were remembered as having occurred, when the Norwegian king was attempting to gain some ground – religious, legal or ­financial – at the expense of the islanders. The guarantee of freedom to travel to and from Norway was thus a concern for both, and for the Icelanders in particular. 13

14 15

While Imsen draws attention to the “predatory economy” which characterized the reign of Magnús berfœttr, this descriptor could apply to the reigns of earlier kings, notably Óláfr Haraldrsson. See Imsen, ‘Introduction,’ p. 22. Bogi Th. Melsteð, Rjettur íslendinga, pp. 18–19. íf v, p. 116; íf xxvi, p. 329; íf xxvii, pp. 240–241. Travel bans are also mentioned in Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Ch. 257) and Þórðar saga kakala (Ch. 4). The latter is noteworthy as Hákon prevented the sons of Icelandic chieftains in Norway from leaving in an attempt to force the island to pay tribute. Chapter 59 of Egils saga relates how a sailing ban between Iceland and Norway was imposed while Hákon and Eiríkr disputed control of Norway (íf ii, p. 176). A more implicit suggestion of a possible ban occurs in Þorsteins þáttr Síðu-Hallssonar, which recounts how Þorsteinn breached the king’s ruling by sailing to Dublin without having obtained his prior consent (csi iv, 460).

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Another possible reason behind the Ólafslög may have been the Norwegian king’s failure to obtain a physical foothold in Iceland. This hypothesis is based on the Grímsey episode in Heimskringla and is discussed in connection with the treaty’s provision of military shelter later in this chapter. Suffice to say here, that the Norwegian king’s request was denied by the Icelanders and this denial may have prompted a negotiation of the king’s formal rights with the Icelanders and, in particular, his rights within their territory. The outcome of these negotiations may have been the Ólafslög. Equally, the Ólafslög may have been part of Óláfr Haraldsson’s reform programme: in the hope that the islanders accept all aspects of the Christian faith and dispense with the pagan customs – infanticide, consumption of horse meat – that still featured in their laws,16 the king may have extracted additional concessions from the Icelanders, ones that found expression in the treaty. There are thus three potential background issues to the treaty’s negotiations, none of which is stated explicitly as being the reason for its negotiation, but all of which could plausibly have contributed to the need and desire to formalize the relationship between Iceland and Norway. Although the treaty negotiations are associated with the thirteen-year period of Óláfr Haraldsson’s reign (1015–1028) and specifically the 1020s, there is a lack of agreement among scholars as to precisely when these are believed to have taken place. For Bogi Th. Melsteð, the agreement between the Icelanders and the Norwegian king was negotiated sometime between 1018 and 1022. He argued that the king pressured the Icelandic Alþingi to make a law establishing his rights and those of his subjects in Iceland around this time.17 It is, therefore, possible that the king’s actions may have been an extension of the legal amendments he had compelled the islanders to make c.1016, mentioned above. Jón Sigurðsson believed the treaty to date to 1022 and connected it to the legal reforms of Óláfr Haraldsson, likely to have been issued in the spring of 1022 before being presented to the Alþingi that summer.18 Konrad Maurer also dated the covenant to 1022, but suggested that the extension of royal authority to the island it enshrined took place in 1024.19 We can broadly suggest that the negotiations likely took place between 1018 and 1024. Interestingly this time-frame includes 1021, when Þorfinnr and Brúsi, the earls of Orkney, are believed to

16 17 18 19

íf i, p. 17; íf xxvii, pp. 73–74, 77. Bogi Th. Melsteð, Íslendinga saga, ii, pp. 561–565. di i, pp. 53, 54. Konrad Maurer, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaats (Munich, 1874), p. 119.

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have submitted to Óláfr Haraldsson.20 One might thus see the Ólafslög as one part of Óláfr Haraldsson’s wider foreign policy concerning the Norse-­settled island communities.

The Negotiation and Ratification of the Treaty

There is no mention of any named individual involved in the treaty’s negotiations, apart from the king himself. There is also no indication of the degree to which the king negotiated the treaty personally, rather than assign the matter to his legal advisers. The question of who may have represented the Icelanders is also problematic: Baldur Þórhallsson comments that, concurrent with the Ólafslög, “‘noble’ islanders started to represent the islanders as a group when meeting other noble men abroad.”21 No evidence is given for this level of highstatus socio-political engagement between Icelanders and foreigners. It is, of course, possible that Baldur Þórhallsson is referring to the Law Council (lögrétta). This body was vested with the authority to represent the island in discussions with foreign powers. Certainly the composition of the lögrétta suggests that it was this native institution more than any other that possessed the skills required for this type of political engagement.22 The lögrétta was comprised of forty-eight chieftains: an aggregate of the thirty-six holders of the fornt goðorð og fullt,23 the ancient chieftaincies, in addition to the three ‘new’ chieftains in each Quarter that had been created as a result of the constitutional reforms of the tenth century.24 Each chieftain was accompanied to the council meetings by two advisers, drawn from his assembly third, but voting rights were restricted to the goðar alone.25 Membership of this body was where a key power of the goðar lay: the right to appoint judges. Furthermore, it was the lögrétta that had the capacity to ‘frame’ laws, in addition to creating new ones.26 The lögrétta then may be seen as representing the Alþingi and, by default, a representative of the Icelandic people. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

ia, p. 106. The entry for 1021 in Konungsannáll states: “Þorfinnr jarl ok Brúsi jarl Sigurðar synir gáfu Orknéyjar i valld Olafs konungs.” Baldur Þórhallsson, ‘Iceland’s External Affairs in the Middle Ages: The Shelter of ­Norwegian Sea Power,’ Stjórnmál og stjórnsýsla, 1, 8 (2012), 5–37, esp. p. 10. Grágás Ia, pp. 211–217 [K117]; Dennis, Foote and Perkins, ‘Introduction’, p. 2. Björn Sigfússon, ‘Full goðorð,’ p. 50. íf i, p. 12. See also Barði Guðmundsson, ‘Goðorð forn og ný,’ pp. 56–83. Grágás Ia, pp. 211–212 [K117]; Laws i, p. 189. Grágás Ia, p. 212 [K117]; Laws i, p. 190.

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While it is likely that it was this body that engaged in whatever discussions took place between the Icelanders and the Norwegian king or his representatives, there is no indication as to where these negotiations were conducted, when they took place, or, indeed, for how long. The manner of the treaty’s preservation complicates matters further, while the lack of contemporary references to the treaty negotiations and its provisions in other sources is extremely problematic. Furthermore, the preserved treaty text gives few linguistic clues, such as the use of prepositions denoting ‘here’ and ‘there,’ which might have suggested a Norwegian provenance for the treaty over an Icelandic one, or vice versa.27 If Grímsey was the tipping point which prompted the recalibration of the Iceland–Norway relationship, could it be suggested that negotiations took place in Norway and the Icelanders who negotiated on behalf of their countrymen were the representatives of the island’s most powerful chieftains, men whom Óláfr Haraldsson held hostage?28 The emphasis on resolving whatever shipping issues may have arisen between the two countries, control over which lay with the Norwegian king, also points to the negotiations taking place in Norway. Medieval Icelandic literature is filled with references to communal decision-­ making, particularly at moments of profound social change. The decision taken by the islanders in c.999–1000 to accept Christianity was one based on discussion, consultation and, ultimately, consensus. Early Icelandic law also emerged from similar processes of discussion and consensus. The continued element of flexibility preserved by the Úlfljótslög and Hafliðaskrá enabled native law to be updated through the powers invested in the lögrétta.29 Important events and decisions in the island’s history indicate that a general consensus was required to ratify and accept these directives. It is therefore likely that any change to the island’s legal environment – particularly a provision enabling a foreign agent to take cases there in absentia – would require ratification at the Alþingi. However, the only reference to this is contained in the first volume of the Diplomatarium Islandicum. Document 16 is prefaced by the statement “Alþingis ályktan um rétt Noregs konúngs og norrænna manna á Íslandi”30 (The resolution of the Alþingi on the rights of the Norwegian king and ­Norwegian men in Iceland). This suggests that the king’s privileges and those of his subjects were ratified in some way, at least in Iceland. 27 28 29 30

On the basis of the treaty’s usage of the prepositions hér (here) and þar (there), Jón Sigurðsson attributed a Norwegian provenance to it (di i, p. 64). íf xxvii, pp. 217–218, 240. Grágás Ia, p. 212 [K117]; Laws i, p. 190. di i, p. 54.

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One of the responsibilities of the lögrétta was to make new laws and amend others where required. If this body did indeed negotiate the treaty on behalf of the Icelanders, then the involvement of its members in this enterprise may have been in itself sufficient to enable the incorporation of the terms of the Ólafslög into native law. Whether or not any of its provisions clashed with older legal customs remains unclear. It does appear, however, that some ratification of the treaty’s contents did take place, as oaths were sworn on it on two occasions by prominent Icelanders and most likely also after its initial acceptance by both parties. In 1057, Bishop Ísleifr, the island’s first native bishop, who had been consecrated the previous year by Archbishop Adalbert of H ­ amburg-Bremen, is said to have sworn oaths on the treaty’s provisions, together with his companions.31 A second series of oaths were sworn on the treaty in 1083 by Bishop Gizurr and the eight men with him.32 These men were important Icelanders, drawn from each of the island’s Quarters, and either possessed a goðorð of their own or were related to a goði. Perhaps these men are the ‘noble islanders’ to whom Baldur Þórhallsson refers.

The Preservation of the Treaty

The subsequent history of the treaty from its promulgation in the early eleventh century to its textual preservation some years later is also problematic. Between 1022 and 1083 (at least) it seems that the treaty was preserved orally. This is a substantial amount of time for something to remain solely in oral circulation, particularly given the significance of the treaty and its provisions. The likely stewards of its oral preservation were the Icelandic lögsögumaðr and his Norwegian counterpart, the lǫgmaðr.33 The Icelandic lawspeaker, significantly, was also the chairman of the lögrétta, and was likely to have been the Icelanders’ plenipotentiary at the negotiations. Among his responsibilities he 31 32

33

ia, p. 108; Bogi Th. Melsteð, Rjettur íslendinga, p. 19. Grágás Ib, p. 197 [K248]; di i, pp. 64, 67, 68; Bogi Th. Melsteð, Rjettur íslendinga, p. 19. The other Icelanders are identified as: from the Southern Quarter, Teitr Gizurarson (born not before 1064, died before 1118) and Markús Skeggjason (lawspeaker 1084–1107); from the Western Quarter, Hreinn Hermundarson and Einarr Arason; from the Northern Quarter, Björn Karlsefnisson and Guðmundr Guðmundarson; from the Eastern Quarter, Daði S­ tarkaðarson and Hólmsteinn Órækjuson. For further see Lúðvík Ingvarsson, Goðorð og goðorðsmenn, i–iii (Egilsstaðir, 1986–87), esp. i, pp. 209–213. Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, ‘Law Recital According to Old Iceland Law: Written Evidence of Oral Transmission?’, Scripta Islandica, 60 (2009), p. 91.

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had to “recite all the sections of the law”34 and “to tell everyone who asks him what the article of law is, both here and at his home.”35 It could reasonably be concluded from this that the holder of the office at the time of the treaty negotiations in the 1020s, Skapti Þóroddsson (1004–1030), was likely to have been largely responsible for the dissemination of its details back in Iceland.36 If we assume that the oral treaty was indeed preserved by the lawspeakers of each country, this then poses the question of whether any system of checks or balances existed to ensure that both its Norwegian and Icelandic custodians preserved precisely the same wording, thereby guaranteeing that the provisions would remain consistent with one another across the sixty or so years of their oral preservation. Of course, to problematize matters further, eleventh-century Norway did not comprise a single law district, but several. Did the lawspeaker from each of the land’s legal provinces preserve an oral version of the treaty or was it perhaps simply memorized by a royal official? Jón Jóhannesson suggested that the treaty provisions were not actually committed to writing until 1083, and concluded that the treaty was the oldest document in the history of the Icelanders written in the Norse language.37 His identification of 1083 as the year in which the Ólafslög was committed to writing is supported by the presence of a number of prominent Icelanders in Norway at this time. These individuals were well-connected representatives of the island’s domestic political elite drawn from each of the island’s four Quarters. It would be unusual for all of these men, including the lawspeaker, to have been absent from Iceland and the management of their chieftaincies simultaneously; rather their absence could only be attributed to a specific task they undertook, such as travelling to Norway with the express purpose of swearing oaths on the treaty’s provisions. Patricia Pires Boulhosa, meanwhile, has offered an alternative date, suggesting that the Ólafslög was not committed to writing until the thirteenth century. Boulhosa’s dating is not, however, supported by the wording of the preserved covenant, which suggests the agreement is prethirteenth century.38 Jón Jóhannesson’s dating remains particularly p ­ ersuasive given the presence of prominent chieftains or their sons in Norway c.1083 and the wording used to describe their ‘embassy’ there. 34 Grágás Ia, p. 209 [K116]; Laws i, p. 187. 35 Grágás Ia, p. 216 [K117]; Laws i, p. 193. 36 íf i, p. 19. 37 Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, p. 134. 38 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 44. She does, however, acknowledge that the occurrence of the verb merkja and filius eius, together with the absence of patronymics, all suggest that the preserved treaty represents a pre-thirteenth-century text (note 8). It is, of course, possible that the compiler recording the laws deliberately used these archaisms to ‘age’ the preserved laws.

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Certainly the manner in which the treaty has been preserved within the texts of Grágás is indicative of how it was perceived in the thirteenth century. It is worth stressing from the outset that in its preserved form, the treaty records a series of eleventh-century laws as organized by a thirteenth-century legal compiler. There is no evidence to suggest either that the provisions of the Ólafslög that have been preserved were (1) as they had been negotiated in the eleventh-century or (2) arranged in this systematic fashion when the treaty was committed to written form at the end of the eleventh century. Either or both of these hypotheses are plausible. The treaty forms two different sections within a chapter of miscellaneous articles in the Konungsbók version of Grágás.39 This manuscript, as mentioned earlier, is dated to the mid-thirteenth century. Konungsbók was the work of two different hands, referred to as Scribe A and Scribe B. Scribe B was responsible for both the writing of the treaty and Tithe Law (tíundarlög) and the manner in which each of these sections have been constructed and organized is similar to the réttarbœtr (amendments of the law) in Jónsbók.40 Réttarbœtr were supplementary to the main legal provisions, but rather than being allocated to the provision to which they referred, they were not broken into their component parts. The fact that the Ólafslög in Konungsbók has been preserved as an “independent legal unit” suggests that Scribe B sought to preserve its “individuality as a text” and was engaged in the compilation of legal material.41 Of particular significance to the present discussion is Konungsbók’s preservation of articles dealing with constitutional matters that are not replicated in the other law collection, Staðarhólsbók. When the Ólafslög is framed within this particular interpretative context, it suggests that the terms of the treaty were remembered as being culturally meaningful in the decades prior to the island’s submission and the issue of a new constitution, Járnsíða, in 1271. The two sections of the treaty are headed “Concerning the rights of the king of Norway in Iceland” and “About the rights of Icelanders in Norway.”42 In the Diplomatarium Islandicum, the rights of the Norwegian king are dated to 1022.43 These rights are separated from those granted to Icelanders in Norway, which are preserved in document no. 21, dated “vorið 1083” (spring 1083), and 39

40 41 42 43

On this manuscript, see Patricia Pires Boulhosa, ‘Layout and the Structure of the Text in Konungsbók,’ in The Power of the Book: Medial Approaches to Medieval Nordic Legal Manuscripts, ed. Lena Rohrbach (Berlin, 2014), pp. 75–95. Patricia Pires Boulhosa, ‘The Laws on Tithe in the Manuscripts Konungsbók and Staðarhólsbók of Grágás,’ in ‘Ecclesia Nidrosiensis,’ ed. Imsen, pp. 231–241, esp. pp. 232–233. Boulhosa, ‘Laws on Tithe,’ pp. 232, 239. NgL i, pp. 437–438 [vii Retterböder og Forordninger, 1]; di i, pp. 54, 65. di i, p. 54.

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prefaced by the statement: “The testimony of Bishop Gizurr, and that of his son Teitr, Markús Skeggjason and many other Icelanders on the laws that King Ólaf the Saint gave to the Icelanders in Norway.”44 Appended to the provisions dealing with the rights of Icelanders in Norway is a proclamation stating “These rights and these laws the holy King Óláfr gave to the Icelanders.”45 On the basis of this, Boulhosa has questioned whether or not the section concerning the rights of Norwegians in Iceland was also attributed to the Norwegian king.46 While we may only speculate on this particular point, the association of the preserved treaty and its terms with Óláfr Haraldsson is especially significant.47 This Norwegian king was remembered as being a great legislator and legal reformer.48 His name is appended to a version of the Gulaþingslög, the ­Norwegian law-code which, according to Ari, was the model of choice for the first Icelandic law-code.49 According to saga tradition, he succeeded in removing a number of heathen practices from the islanders’ laws in the early eleventh century.50 A treaty that outlined reciprocal rights with an eleventh-century king may have been seen as a way for thirteenth-century Icelandic lawmen to recall and re-state their earlier pre-submission king-given rights, thereby emphasizing the eleventh century as a time of domestic legal significance.51 The individuals named in connection with the treaty are important aids, not only in locating this pivotal moment in Icelandic–Norwegian relations but also for defining that historical moment, remembered as having taken place in the eleventh century. This timing allowed the covenant not only to be 44 di i, p. 64. 45 di i, p. 67. 46 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 44. 47 Gunnar Karlsson, History of Iceland, p. 48, remarks that the treaty is referred to with “dubious authority” as “Iceland’s treaty with King Óláfr the Saint.” For the purposes of the present study, it is the association made by the compiler of Konungsbók of these rights with a named eleventh-century Norwegian king that is important. Óláfr inn helgi’s special friendship with the Icelanders is indicated in the opening lines of Bjarnar saga Hitdælakappa, while his moderating influence is also evident in the manner in which the king deals with the argument between Bjǫrn and Þórðr in the same narrative. See íf iii, pp. 111–113, 130–136. 48 The Passion and Miracles of the Blessed Óláfr, in A History of Norway, trans. Kunin, p. 29, states that Óláfr gave laws “ecclesiastical and civil, full of great wisdom and framed with wonderful discernment. […] and wisely bearing in mind how often kings arrogantly misused their subjects, he restrained and bridled royal licence with the rigour of law. These laws reveal how devoted this glorious king was to God, how benevolent to his fellow-men.” 49 íf i, p. 7; Vogt, Function of Kinship, p. 37. 50 íf xxvii, p. 77. 51 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 57.

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associated with Óláfr Haraldsson but also with the island’s first bishops and, in particular, an individual deemed suitably qualified to be the king of Iceland: Gizurr Ísleifsson. This last connection echoes the desire to associate the first law-code and conversion with individuals connected to the Norwegian king, thereby endowing them with authority and legitimacy. It also emphasizes once again the importance of the Haukdælir to early Icelandic history. Notwithstanding the desire to associate the treaty with a pro-active Norwegian king who had interests outside of Norway, the treaty is not allocated a chapter of its own within Grágás; rather, it is preserved within Chapter xv.52 This appears to suggest that the Ólafslög may have lost whatever potency it had once enjoyed by the time the Konungsbók manuscript was compiled. However, there is a legal coherence underpinning the arrangement of the treaty provisions vis-à-vis its location and relationship with the other sections and chapters of the law-code. Chapter xv is placed between Chapter xiv on the obligations of the hreppar and Chapter xvi on the payment of tithes; as such it is inserted between two chapters concerned with social responsibilities, obligations and the Church. Chapter xv itself is comprised of eighteen miscellaneous sections (§§ 237–254). The rights of the Norwegian king in Iceland are contained in § 247 while the rights of Icelanders in Norway are presented in § 248. The treaty clauses are separated by two headings.53 The terms of the treaty are not expressed in separate provisions, rather “the text flows continuously in double columns, and capital letters mark distinct grammatical clauses”54 meaning that “the modern reader must identify each provision through a grammatical and logical analysis of the clauses and also by analogy with other provisions.”55 The material appears to have been organized and/or laid out by an individual with legal knowledge.56 Insofar as § 247 is i­ mmediately preceded by § 246 (“standard values among men”) and followed by § 249, which concerns Norwegian inheritance rights, the terms of the treaty are book-ended by topically-related provisions. Indeed all the provisions ­within Chapter xv are clustered thematically, providing more specific material to that given elsewhere in the law-code.57 52 Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 59–64, discusses the manuscript presentation of the treaty in detail. 53 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 62. 54 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 63. 55 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 63. I am following Boulhosa’s division of the treaty into discrete legal provisions on the basis of topic, which she outlines at Appendix 1, pp. 214–215. 56 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 63. 57 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 60.

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While the existence of a significant time lag between the treaty’s negotiation in the 1020s and its textual preservation in the 1080s is problematic, an equally thorny matter is whether or not the provisions agreed upon in the 1020s remained as they had originally been negotiated. There is good reason to suggest that the terms of the treaty may have been altered on not one, but two occasions. The timing of the oaths sworn by Bishop Ísleifr on the terms of the treaty in 1057 is significant: this had been a year of extreme hardship and privation in Iceland as the result of a famine. The hardship was of such intensity that earlier provisions of the Ólafslög, and specifically the financial requirements imposed on those Icelanders travelling to Norway, were waived by King Haraldr harðráði Sigurðarson (1046–1066). This exemption, together with additional shipments of grain to the island, may have been the result of Bishop Ísleifr’s personal intercession with the king. The nature of this interaction between an Icelandic bishop from the island’s most important family, the Haukdælir, and a Norwegian king is one which tallies well with the belief that Bishop Ísleifr swore oaths on the provisions of the Ólafslög, but whether he swore oaths on an amended treaty is another matter and one for which there is no definitive answer. The island’s salvation may have come at a cost. Perhaps Norwegian aid elicited a renewed or revised Icelandic commitment to Norway. This commitment may have been of a military nature. A number of Norwegian kings, including Haraldr harðráði, may have welcomed the opportunity to extend their capacity to conscript the islanders into their armies, particularly in their overseas campaigns.58 Equally, the treaty’s provisions may have been revised prior to their preservation in manuscript form in 1083 and any remaining matters of dispute between the two countries addressed at that stage.

Contemporary References to the Treaty

The Ólafslög is remembered as the earliest political document of the Icelandic Free State establishing the parameters of the ‘official’ political relationship that existed between Iceland and Norway in the early eleventh century. It is 58

íf xxviii, pp. 79–80, 120, and 141–148. Halldórr Snorrason and Úlfr Óspaksson are both said to have been in Haraldr’s army. Chapter 60 of Haralds saga Sigurðarsonar recounts how Haraldr imposed a levy on Norway to muster a force to sail against Denmark; Úlfr served as a ship’s captain in this conflict. It is likely that any Icelanders in Norway when this levy was raised would have been conscripted into the Norwegian army at worst or prevented from leaving the country at best.

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worth re-emphasizing that the form in which the treaty has been preserved in Konungsbók is the construct of a thirteenth-century legal compiler. Nevertheless, the importance of the covenant would outwardly suggest we might find some reference(s) to it or its provisions elsewhere. If we accept that the Ólafslög was first committed to writing in the latter part of the eleventh century, likely sometime between c.1083 (Jón Sigurðsson) and c.1100 (Björn M. Ólsen), then we should reasonably expect to find a reference to the treaty in Íslendingabók, which was written twenty to forty years after the treaty was preserved in book-form. Ari, however, does not make any direct reference to the treaty: his account neither confirms nor denies its existence, it simply fails to mention it explicitly. This is surprising, particularly as the majority of Ari’s named informants lived between 996 and 1120, the period in which the treaty is believed to have been negotiated, while Íslendingabók itself was written under the auspices of the Haukdælir, at least one of whom may have sworn oaths on its provisions. Íslendingabók does, however, contain an important indirect reference to one aspect of the Ólafslög.59 In his account of the westward migration from Norway, Ari mentions that the Norwegian king, fearful that his own land would become rapidly depopulated as men abandoned his kingdom, attempted to ‘ban’ (bannaði) them from leaving Norway for Iceland. Such a ban would have been virtually impossible to enforce so an economic penalty was imposed on those who wished to leave: a payment of fimm aura was to be made to the king prior to departure.60 The imposition of this economic charge on those intending to leave the Norwegian realm also speaks to the king’s concern that the migrants’ exodus would also result in a loss of valuable tax revenues. It is worth quoting Ari on the landaurar if only because his passing mention of it is a selective one: And then a great many people began to move out here from Norway, until King Haraldr forbade it, because he thought it would lead to d­ epopulation of the land. They then came to the agreement that everyone who was not exempt and travelled out here from there should pay the king five ounces of silver. […] These were the origins of the tax which is now called landdues, and sometimes more was paid for it and sometimes less, until Óláfr the Stout made it clear that everyone who travelled between Norway and 59

60

The only aspect of the treaty to which Ari refers is the landaurar. This payment dominates many of the agreement’s provisions: Grágás Ib, pp. 195–197 [K248]; Laws ii, pp. 211–213; di i, pp. 65–70. íf i, pp. 5–6.

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Iceland should pay the king half a mark, except for women and those men whom he exempted.61 Ari’s account of the landaurar and his reference to Óláfr inn digri, later inn helgi, reveals that the payment of this charge was apparently not believed to have been standardized until his reign and suggests that this regulation may have only occurred as a result of the Ólafslög. His treatment of the tax itself is slightly more specious, however. Firstly, although the charge was indeed levied at fimm aura it could be paid in commodities other than the silver indicated by Ari, including vaðmál, the native woollen cloth and principal export of the islanders.62 Secondly, Ari states that everyone who travelled between Iceland and Norway was exposed to this tax. This allows Ari to draw a link between the old tax paid by the Norwegian émigrés before departing Haraldr hárfagri’s realm and the later charge imposed on Icelanders entering the ­Norwegian realm in the time of Óláfr Haraldsson. Icelanders sailing to ­Norway were certainly aware of their liability to this charge. In Óláfs saga helga, Hjalti ­Skeggjason remarks that “It is the law between Iceland and Norway for Icelandic men coming to Norway to pay land-dues [on their arrival].”63 There is, however, no suggestion anywhere in the treaty that Norwegians had to pay a tax either when leaving or re-entering the kingdom. A later tax levied on ­Norwegians leaving the realm during the reign of Sveinn Alfífuson (1030–1035) was met with much opposition.64 Some of the problems of Haraldr hárfagri and his doubtful historicity were discussed in Chapter 2. What is important for the present discussion is that this Norwegian king was remembered as having instituted the landaurar. Ari’s account suggests that, faced with the depopulation of his kingdom and, in particular, the exodus of able young fighting men, together with the loss of tax revenues, the king reacted by imposing a tax on migrants departing Norway for Iceland. For Ari, this tax was remembered as a one-time only payment. A consistent level of sea traffic between the island and Norway may not have been anticipated at the time this toll was first conceived. The fact that there was no provision made for the tax to be applied to Icelanders who travelled to Norway and then back home to Iceland would seem to indicate that few of those who left in the first generation of the settlement travelled back, and 61 62 63 64

Íslendingabók, p. 4. Bruce E. Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise: Commerce and Economy in the Middle Ages (Columbia sc, 1981), pp. 12–13, 73. íf xxvii, p. 95. íf xxVII, pp. 399–400; íf xxIX, pp. 28–29, 31.

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that the ­movement was largely an outbound one. By the tenth and eleventh centuries, the numbers sailing between the lands must have been considerable if later kings saw the travellers as a potential source of additional revenue. By the time of Óláfr Haraldsson’s reign, the volume of traffic must have increased significantly and in the Ólafslög the king sought to formalize payment of these tolls, which were extended to include all those travelling from Iceland to the Norwegian realm. The exemption, which had originally applied to Icelanders returning to Norway, was reversed so that all Icelanders entering the ­Norwegian realm were liable to the landaurar and the corresponding exemption was granted to the Norwegians. Notwithstanding this reference to the economic obligations imposed on Icelanders travelling to Iceland, it is particularly strange that the author of the island’s earliest native history, an account of the institutional and constitutional foundation of Icelandic society, does not include a direct reference to the covenant between Iceland and the Norwegian king. Bishop Gizurr, one of the men who swore oaths on the treaty in 1083, may have been assisted by Ari himself on his episcopal visits; it is virtually inconceivable that Ari would have been unaware of the role played by the bishop in the formalization and ratification of Iceland’s relationship with Norway.65 A number of Ari’s informants, including Þorgeirr afráðskollr, Oddr Kolsson and Hallr Þórarinsson, were all Icelandic agents of Norwegian ‘royal tradition,’66 while the majority of those to whom he links his account of other key events in early Icelandic history were too well-placed in Icelandic and Norwegian circles to be unaware of the treaty’s existence. If we are to attribute the deficiency to a deliberate omission, then we need to suggest what the motives behind this decision may have been. A number of possible hypotheses may be offered to account for Íslendingabók’s lack of direct reference to the Ólafslög. Firstly, it is worth reiterating that Ari’s account of early Icelandic history was one in which he rarely “refers to commonly held views.”67 Ari’s silence on the matter, then, should not be seen as either evidence for his unfamiliarity with or ignorance of the Ólafslög. A second, related explanation is provided by the focus of Ari’s account. His largely positive presentation of Norway notwithstanding, Íslendingabók is constructed around important Icelandic individuals and events that took place in Iceland. If we assume the Ólafslög was initiated by the Norwegian king and negotiated 65 66

67

Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Formáli,’ pp. v–viii. Tommy Danielsson, Sagorna om Norges kungar. Från Magnús góði till Magnús Erlingsson (Hedemora, 2002), p. 325; Theodore M. Andersson, The Partisan Muse in the Early Icelandic Sagas (1200–1250) (Ithaca ny, 2012), pp. 36–37. Grønlie, ‘Introduction,’ p. xvii.

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in Norway, it would not have fitted into this scheme and the lack of reference to the treaty may thus simply be attributed to the narrow focus of Ari’s account. Indeed the Ólafslög may have been less important relative to other Icelandic events and legal developments. This suggests a third possible reason for the lack of direct references to the treaty in Íslendingabók: the treaty’s provisions may have had little actual impact on the islanders’ daily lives. The preserved text does not specify how the rights allocated to the Norwegian king and Icelanders in Norway were to be enforced. Its terms may never have been fully implemented or were rapidly superseded or displaced by other provisions in native Icelandic law. Ari’s reference to the financial impediment imposed on Icelanders travelling to Norway should be framed within this context, suggesting that it was the landaurar that had the greatest impact on the islanders, restricting their capacity to travel to Norway but having little real day-to-day impact on the lives of the ordinary bændr, even if it benefited the goðar. An alternative hypothesis for Íslendingabók’s lack of reference to the Ólafslög may tentatively be connected with the other individuals involved in its production. Ari’s original text, now lost, may have contained a reference to the treaty but a statement to that effect may have been subsequently removed or, perhaps, even suppressed on the express instruction of his textual advisors, Sæmundr Sigfússon and the two bishops, Ketill and Þorlákr. Two named individuals who swore oaths on the Ólafslög in 1057 and 1083 were also Icelandic bishops: Ísleifr Gizurarson, who was consecrated by Bishop Adalbert of Hamburg-­Bremen in 1056,68 and his son and successor, Gizurr Ísleifsson. Chapter x of Íslendingabók is glowing in its praise for Bishop Gizurr, describing him as “more popular with all his countrymen than any other man.”69 He was deemed by Haraldr harðráði to be suitably qualified to be a king, should he wish; he also was a descendant of the Haukdælir who are presented as Iceland’s royal family in Hungrvaka.70 The Haukdælir had connections to the Norwegian royal house: Gizurr inn hvíti, an instrumental figure in the islanders’ conversion, was a second cousin of Óláfr Tryggvason while his son, Ísleifr, married Dalla, a d­ istant cousin of Óláfr inn helgi.71 The Haukdælir, then, were related by blood and marriage to the two evangelizing Óláfrs. Given these connections, it is surprising that Ari remains silent on the matter of the Ólafslög, especially when his account assures the reputation of this family in key 68 69 70 71

ia, p. 108. íf i, p. 22. íf xxiii, pp. 289–290; ÍF XVI, pp. 3–43; Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Royal Pretenders and Faithful Retainers: the Icelandic Vision of Kingship in Transition,’ Gardar, 30 (1999), pp. 48–49. íf xxvi, p. 328; íf XV2, pp. 28–29; íf i, p. 216.

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­ oments of early Icelandic history. Of course if we interpret the terms of the m treaty as an I­ celandic surrender of sorts to the Norwegian king, then it is clear why the Haukdælir would not wish to be associated with it. Whatever the precise reason behind Ari’s silence, the fact that he opts not to refer to the Ólafslög is telling, particularly in the context of his desire to link the island’s settlement, conversion and legal history to Norway. While we might ascribe Ari’s silence to deliberate omission, he is not the only Icelandic author who fails to make a direct reference to the treaty. As the Ólafslög was concerned with foreign policy and the acts of kings, one might expect to find some reference to or memory of it in the konungasögur. Two of the compendia, Morkinskinna and Fagrskinna, fail to refer to this document of foreign policy; this is surprising in the case of Morkinskinna which contains a number of tales about Icelanders in Norway and their interactions with the Norwegian kings. No direct mention is made of the treaty in Heimskringla either, an unexpected omission given its interest in supreme authority.72 Heimskringla does, however, provide a number of indirect references to the Ólafslög, two of which concern the landaurar.73 The connection between the treaty and Norwegian foreign policy regarding Iceland is also suggested by the inclusion of an account of how Óláfr Haraldsson attempted to gain control of Grímsey.74 This episode is the only instance in ­Heimskringla in which the Icelanders might be said to articulate their political status relative to Norway and the Norwegian king and even prevail over the monarch. References to the Norwegian king’s de facto power over the ­ Icelanders are made elsewhere in the text, suggesting that some type of formalization of rights had taken place.75 If the author of Heimskringla was continuing the tradition of Icelandic independent development pursued by Ari, then this may provide an explanation of sorts for why both works give only oblique nods to the existence of a contractual arrangement between ­Iceland and Norway. If Icelandic writers feared that mentioning the Ólafslög would impinge upon the independent status of the islanders, and elevate the Ólafslög to an 72

73 74 75

On the expansionist ambitions of the Norwegian kings in Heimskringla see ­Marlene Ciklamini, Snorri Sturluson (Boston, 1978), p. 65, and Björn Þorsteinsson, Íslenzka þjóðveldið (Reykjavik, 1953), pp. 291–292. íf xxvii, pp. 55–56. A statement about the payment of these dues is also made by Hjalti Skeggjason in Chapter 72 of Óláfs saga helga. This episode is discussed in detail within the context of ‘military shelter’ later in this chapter. íf xxvii, pp. 73–74, 77.

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importance it simply did not assume in the lives of everyday Icelanders, then perhaps we should expect to find references to it in the Norwegian histories, the authors of which had no reason to uphold the island’s sovereignty or preserve its legal autonomy. All three histories – the hn, ha and Ágrip – were written in the form of royal epitomes or biographies and the Ólafslög was the product of a king. As such, one might expect these authors to have been ­acutely aware of royal policy, in particular the foreign policy pursued by a king who enjoys a remarkably favourable presentation across their accounts. There is not a single direct reference to the Ólafslög by name, nor to the negotiations with the Icelanders, in any of the three synoptic Norwegian histories. Each of these texts, however, were composed at an even greater remove from the treaty than Íslendingabók (between 70 and 140 years after Jón Sigurðsson believes the treaty was preserved in written form and c.140–190 years after the initial negotiations), and written to promote the political or ecclesiastical interests of different groups. Both the hn and ha have the Christianization of Norway as their central focus and, in particular, the respective roles played by Óláfr Tryggvason and Óláfr Haraldsson in this process.76 The cult that subsequently sprang up around Óláfr inn helgi is also stressed in both texts. The hn, which was “conceived in government circles, episcopal, royal, or both”,77 seeks to legitimize Norwegian evangelization within the realm and also in the peripheral lands over which its Church sought to extend its jurisdiction. One of the central actors in the text is Óláfr Haraldsson, the king who negotiated with the Icelanders, so a reference to the covenant between the regent and the Icelanders might be anticipated. Such anticipation is not met. While the text does not include any reference to the treaty between the two countries it does, however, reveal something about Norwegian perceptions of Iceland: Iceland is included within the accounts of the ‘tributary islands,’ each of which was evangelized by Óláfr Tryggvason and came under the jurisdiction of the Norwegian Church through the archbishopric of Nidaros.78 Not only does the author consider the island as falling within the spiritual boundaries of the Norwegian archdiocese, he also seems to suggest that it was natural for Iceland to fall within the boundaries, ecclesiastical or otherwise, of the Norwegian realm. While there is no express mention made of any organized tribute being paid by the Icelanders to the king, Ekrem argues that the reason why the hn does not mention a tribute payment for Iceland is b­ ecause 76 77 78

Mortensen, ‘Introduction,’ p. 9. Mortensen, ‘Introduction,’ p. 24. hn, pp. 64–75.

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such payments were made as and when required, not as an annual tax payment made at a designated time.79 The payment of tolls levied upon islanders travelling out from Norway to Iceland, such as the landaurar imposed on prospective settlers,80 together with the landing fees charged to Icelanders making port in Norway under the terms of the Ólafslög, would locate Iceland within the sphere of Norwegian authority: payment was required in order for them to enter that jurisdiction and engage in activities there. Despite the use he made of Icelandic sources, oral and likely written, Theodoricus also fails to make any reference to the Ólafslög in his ha. He does provide a glowing account of Óláfr Haraldsson – a man whom he describes as the “propitious hope and glory of the Norwegian people”81 – but he does not remark upon the king’s foreign policy outside of his evangelizing work and his desire to “water” what his namesake, Óláfr Tryggvason, “had gloriously planted.”82 One cannot help but wonder whether the clerical motivations of both Theodoricus and the author of the hn heavily inform their respective portrayals of Óláfr Haraldsson, elevating his cult as an evangelizing king in order to assure his canonization. Iceland did not even play a supporting role in the history of the early Norwegian Church, so maybe the lack of references to  the Ólafslög is not entirely surprising. Or perhaps the cult of Óláfr was such that at the time of writing, any foreign policy initiatives pursued by the king were simply forgotten or had become secondary to his portrayal as the ‘apostle of the North.’83 Ágrip, the final Norwegian history, again treats Óláfr Haraldsson favourably, describing the king as a man renowned for his wisdom and courage.84 The text displays an overtly national sentiment throughout, particularly in its account of the accomplishments of the Norwegian kings abroad.85 Given this interest in events which involved the Norwegian king, but which took place outside his domain, one might expect there to be some reference to the Ólafslög or to the negotiations with the Icelanders. At least, there is no direct reference, but again, this history is suggestive of, on the one hand, the early relationship between 79 80 81 82 83

84 85

Inger Ekrem, ‘Essay on Date and Purpose,’ in hn, p. 192. íf i, pp. 5–6. ha, p. 17. ha, p. 21. Adam of Bremen and the traditions disseminated by the Norwegian archdiocese of Nidaros promoted Óláfr Haraldsson as the evangelizing king of Norway; the Icelandic tradition emphasized Óláfr Tryggvason. For further see Lönnroth, ‘The Baptist and the Saint,’ pp. 257–264; Bagge, ‘The Making of a Missionary King,’ pp. 473–513. íf xxix, pp. 26–27. Driscoll, ‘Introduction,’ p. xii.

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Iceland and Norway and, on the other, aspects of the treaty itself. The history’s account of the Danish reign of Sveinn and Álfífa over Norway is reminiscent of the later accounts of the Icelandic Íslendingasögur in its description of the economic hardship imposed by the king on his subjects: those who abandoned Norway without the express permission of their Danish overlord had their possessions and lands confiscated. The expropriation of family-owned lands bears striking parallels to the content of the charges levelled against Haraldr hárfagri by the authors of several thirteenth- and fourteenth-century landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur. One must wonder, then, if the accounts of ofríki Haralds in the Icelandic sources are, in fact, wholly Icelandic productions. Given Icelandic authors’ knowledge of Ágrip, is it possible that this account provided the inspiration for the characterization of Haraldr hárfagri in the later saga literature? Those seeking to leave Norway, meanwhile, irrespective of whether they were Icelanders returning to their homeland or Norwegians travelling to the island (hérlenzkr ok útlenzkr) were obliged to pay a land-tax.86 There are obvious parallels between this departure levy and the landaurar imposed on departing migrants for Norway by Haraldr hárfagri in an attempt to dissuade people from leaving his realm.87 While the three synoptic Norwegian histories may be silent on the treaty and its terms, they do nonetheless provide tantalizing glimpses into the early relationship between Iceland and Norway and how it was remembered. The author of the hn believed Iceland’s rightful place lay within the tributary islands, while the author of Ágrip refers to the departure tax levied upon those leaving Norway for the island. On the basis of these accounts, the political and financial jurisdiction of Norway included Iceland, albeit in an as yet unformulated manner, while the religious jurisdiction of the Norwegian archdiocese of Nidaros extended to the Icelandic Church. Iceland’s place was within the Norwegian realm and the centre (Norway) began to formally extend its authority to the periphery (Iceland). Relative to the other achievements of Óláfr Haraldsson, and particularly his canonization and thirteenth-century status as rex perpetuus Norvegiae, any eleventh-century foreign policy initiatives he may have pursued concerning Iceland paled into insignificance. Just as the Icelandic sources may have chosen to suppress references to the treaty simply because they did not fit in with their desired perception of their earlier relationship with Norway, the Norwegian historians, ever mindful of the glory of the early national Church, lionized Óláfr Haraldsson to suit their own ecclesiastical ends. 86 87

íf xxix, p. 29. These terms literally mean ‘native’ and ‘foreign.’ íf i, p. 5.

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Frá rétt Nóregs konungs á Íslandi88

It is clear from the preceding discussion that the Ólafslög is a problematic source. In its preserved form, the treaty must be read as a thirteenth-century record of an eleventh-century covenant by a thirteenth-century legal compiler. There is no reason to suggest that the organizing principles and legal coherence applied by the compiler of Konungsbók prevailed in the eleventh century. Equally, there is no indication as to which, if any, of the provisions remained in force at the time of the treaty’s preservation or, in the cases of those that did not, how long these had been observed since the treaty had been negotiated. A series of additional challenges are posed by the lack of contemporary or near contemporary references to the treaty. We may speculate that this was due to one of two things: firstly, that the treaty had little actual impact on the day-to-day lives of Icelanders and Norwegians or, secondly, that some or all of its provisions may have been in force for only a short period of time. In order to ascertain which of these suppositions is correct, the treaty’s provisions need to be examined. The Right of the Norwegian King to Self-Summon Cases § 247 of Konungsbók bestows a special and specific right upon the Norwegian king.89 It dispensed with the issuing of legal summonses in lawsuits undertaken by the king personally or on his behalf. Henceforth his suits were to be self-summoned. This meant that any difficulties that had been encountered by the king’s men when attempting to travel to Iceland to deliver a summons to an islander or to a perpetrator who had fled there were swiftly sidestepped.90 By granting the king the right to self-summon cases, however, the legal jurisdiction of the Norwegian king was now no longer confined to Norway. Although the wording of the treaty makes it clear that the right to self-­ summon cases is a royal prerogative, it is silent on who was to prosecute these cases on behalf of the king and, if this obligation was to be shouldered by the Icelandic judiciary, how this was to be enforced. The treaty does not specify 88

“On the rights of the Norwegian king in Iceland.” This section is preserved in Grágás 1b, p. 195 [K247]; Laws ii, p. 210; di i, p. 54; NgL i, p. 437 [vii Retterböder og Forordninger, 1]. It also includes the rights of Norwegians in Iceland. 89 di i, p. 54. “Sa er réttr konongs or noregi a islande at sialf stefnt scal socom hans vera. oc at logom þar landz manna søkia.” 90 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 65, suggests the omission of a similar clause in the Norwegian law codes would seem to confirm Jón Jóhannesson’s assertion (Íslendinga saga, i, p. 135) that this right was granted in order to overcome some of the perils of a Norwegian having to travel to Iceland in person where a case was a summoning suit.

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precisely what type of cases the king could bring in Iceland. There is no indication, for instance, that the king was limited to prosecuting only the most serious and heinous crimes. It is not clear whether his lawsuits were restricted to those who had committed an offence against him personally, to those ­Norwegians who had fled to Iceland, to Icelandic transgressors, or to all three. If it was to all three, the terms of the treaty greatly extended the jurisdiction of the Norwegian king and gave him a foothold as some sort of executive authority on the island in everything but name. More importantly, for the present study, there is the possibility that the extension of the Norwegian king’s justice to Iceland allowed for prosecutions to be taken on his behalf by Icelanders, some of whom may have been his retainers, against their fellow islanders.91 Icelanders themselves could be the arbiters of Norwegian justice and, in particular, of the Norwegian king’s justice. A number of the Íslendingasögur certainly bear out the contention that the jurisdiction of the Norwegian king extended as far as Iceland or, more correctly, that the king felt within his rights to take action there against those who had transgressed against him personally or against his men.92 Although composed at some remove from the events they describe, these culturally meaningful narratives are valuable guides to the perceived behaviour and dy­namics  of medieval Icelandic and Norwegian society in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries. Several episodes involving Óláfr Haraldsson reveal that this particular king did not shy away from pitting Icelander against Icelander in order to exact vengeance for offences perpetrated against his own men. Fóstbræðra saga, for instance, describes how the king ordered one of his Icelandic retainers, Þorgeirr Hávarsson, “to avenge the injuring of one of my men [Þórir] out in Iceland so the Icelanders will think before harming my men.”93 Icelander was pitted against fellow Icelander and the bonds of fealty and loyalty to one’s lord were seen to outweigh, in this instance at least, any

91 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 67, discusses the lawsuit related to the prosecution of háðung in K238. This type of prosecution required those accused to be summoned, but if it is read in light of the king’s right under K247 of the Ólafslög, “then a retainer of the king in Iceland – who had the right to prosecute, on the king’s behalf, a man who composed háðung against the king – could prosecute the accused in Iceland without the need to summon him.” The matter of whether a prosecution could be undertaken without the need for summons is less of a concern for this study than the law allowing for the possibility that such suits may have been undertaken by Icelanders against Icelanders on behalf of the king. 92 This suggests that a broad interpretation of the king’s lawsuits, extending to cases in which crimes were committed against his retainers, is possible. 93 íf vi, p. 183.

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sense of loyalty to one’s fellow countryman. The king’s wishes are fulfilled: Þórir is slain by Þorgeirr. The desire of the Norwegian king to ensure that the islanders respected the lives of his men is also laid bare in Þórarins þáttr ofsa, which contains a description of how the death of Grettir’s kinsman, Þorgils, was avenged by Þórarinn. When he learned of the slaying, Eyjólfr Guðmundarson, whom the tale describes as a “a retainer [hirðmaðr] of King Óláfr like his father Guðmundr”, is said to have remarked “few of King Óláfr’s house-men/farm-hands had been slain without compensation [being paid].”94 In this particular instance his observation carried even more weight insofar as the slain man “was dear to the king.”95 The Norwegian king, it was believed, sought retribution from those who perpetrated offences against his men: an attack on one of the king’s men was tantamount to an attack on the king himself. The hot-headed behaviour of some Icelanders – or the perception that they were badly behaved – may have been one of the reasons why the king sought to self-summon his cases there. That the king would consider this to be a valuable privilege betrays the concerns Óláfr Haraldsson had relative to Iceland and its population in the early eleventh century. Such putative eleventh-century Norwegian perceptions of Iceland and the Icelanders would dovetail with those expressed in the hn, which describes the island’s first settler, Ingólfr, as a man forcibly ejected from his Norwegian homeland because of his criminality.96 Clearly the island community was believed to have been a hostile, maybe reprobate, one from an early stage. On this premise, at least, the opening clause of the Ólafslög could be read as an attempt to address – or on the part of the islanders, actively correct – a common Norwegian perception of the Icelanders. If we accept that this provision extended the king’s authority to Iceland prior to the island’s submission and that it also entitled him to prosecute offences committed in the skattlǫnd in Iceland, then this suggests that a structured legal relationship existed between the Norwegian-settled islands at an early stage and, furthermore, that this relationship was pursued by the ­Norwegian king.97 This reading adds a further layer of complexity to the memory of the early Iceland–Norway relationship and also to the relationship between Norway and the tributary islands as a politico-legal system. 94 95 96 97

íf x, p. 144. íf x, p. 144. hn, p. 69. Chapter 33 of Egils saga describes how an instruction from Haraldr hárfagri ordering the killing of Bjǫrn Brynjólfsson was dispatched throughout the Norse island communities: íf ii, p. 85.

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The Rights of Norwegians in Iceland to Enjoy the Same Laws and Rights as Men of That Country98 The second part of § 247 accords Norwegians the same rights, when in Iceland, as those enjoyed by Icelanders under their native law. A broad interpretation of this provision suggests that, when in Iceland, Norwegians had the same rights under law as the native population;99 a more restrictive understanding limits this apparent legal uniformity to rights of compensation.100 Both readings, however, indicate that Norwegians in Iceland were afforded the protection of the law. This right must have been particularly important for Norwegian merchants who often had to stay for prolonged periods on the island before sailing back home. On the basis of these two clauses alone – the first granting an unprecedented royal prerogative to the Norwegian king and extending Norwegian legal jurisdiction to the island as a result, the other securing the status of Norwegians in Iceland – Norway appears to be making a considerable gain at Iceland’s expense.101 This ‘gain’ is located within the framework of the Iceland–Norway relationship in general and, specifically within thirteenthcentury memories of their legal relationship. It is important to stress, however, that despite its classification of Norwegians as a ‘special’ type of foreigner, Icelandic law remained Icelandic. In her reading of § 247, Boulhosa runs the two clauses together to form a single stipulation.102 Such a reading bestows upon Norwegians the same rights Icelanders enjoy, but restricts the summoning privilege to the king’s lawsuits only. The term ‘rights’ (réttr) in this context could then be interpreted – as Boulhosa suggests – to mean that Norwegians taking cases in Iceland, other than the king, had to issue a summons in Iceland but nonetheless came under the provisions of those laws in force in Iceland.103 Another, more restrictive interpretation is also possible. Reading both clauses together, the ‘rights’ given to the Norwegians in Iceland may have been confined only to those prosecuting cases on behalf of the Norwegian king. This hypothesis has some foundation,

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di i, p. 54. “Lǫg oc rett scolo hans menn þar hafa. slícan sem landz men.” These rights are contained in Grágás 1b, p. 195 [K247]. 99 Konrad Maurer, Vorlesungen über altnordische Rechtsgeschichte (Leipzig, 1907–1938), IV, p. 475; Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, p. 135. 100 Laws ii, p. 210. The editors of the most recent English language edition of Grágás, translate réttr as “right to personal compensation”, basing their interpretation on an individual’s wergild value. 101 This is certainly the opinion of Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, pp. 135–139. 102 Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 66–67. 103 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 67.

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particularly if the reason for self-summoned cases was fear of the I­ celanders’ aggressiveness, in which case those Norwegians or representatives of the king prosecuting Icelanders on his behalf would have needed as much protection under the law as possible. All of these readings, each of which emphasizes the legal protection of Norwegians under Icelandic law, are suggestive of ­Norwegian perceptions of the island and its community. Rights of Inheritance The final right granted to Norwegians concerned the claiming of inheritances in Iceland. Provision two within § 247 states that: “A kinsman or partner shall take an inheritance in Iceland”; if these men are indisposed, however, the inheritance “shall wait on an heir from Norway.”104 This indicates that an Icelandic-­based inheritance claim was, for a Norwegian, open-ended; it was not subject to time constraints of any kind. Furthermore, the type of kinsman who could legitimately make the claim is not specified. Not only is the claim not subject to a time limit, the claim can legitimately be made by any kin member. The continued traffic and family ties between the two countries would suggest that the Norwegian relatives of many Icelanders could now legitimately claim an inheritance in Iceland. Boulhosa favours a wide interpretation of this clause to allow Norwegians inherit from both Icelanders and Norwegians, while Bogi Th. Melsteð has restricted his understanding to just inheritances from ­Norwegians in Iceland.105 Both readings allow for a continued N ­ orwegian presence and active land-holdings in Iceland. There is no reason to favour one reading over the other, but the wider application of this provision to allow Norwegians inherit from both Icelanders and Norwegians suggests something about the continued and significant presence of Norwegians in Iceland.

Um rétt Íslendinga i Nóregi106

The second section of the Ólafslög is concerned with the rights of Icelanders in Norway. While outwardly this part of the treaty appears to grant the ­islanders 104 Grágás Ib, p. 195 [K247]; di i, p. 54; Laws ii, p. 210. 105 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 79; Bogi Th. Melsteð, Rjettur íslendinga, p. 17. Bogi Th. Melsteð limited the claiming of inheritances to blood kin and partners of Norwegians in Iceland. 106 “About the rights of Icelanders in Norway.” This part of the treaty is preserved in Grágás Ib, pp. 195–197 [K248]; Laws ii, pp. 210–213; di i, pp. 65–70; NgL i, pp. 437–438 [vii Retterböder og Forordninger, 1].

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certain privileges in Norway, upon closer examination it seems more likely to be an attempt by the Norwegian king to place a number of restrictions or impositions on those Icelanders who intended to travel to his kingdom. This section should not be interpreted simply as the Norwegian king profiting at the expense of the Icelanders; rather it reveals that while sea traffic between the two countries was desired and encouraged, a specific type of Icelander was its ultimate beneficiary. The Legal Status of Icelanders in Norway Under the terms of the Ólafslög, Icelanders in Norway were granted hǫldsréttr. A hǫldr was a landowner who was entitled to possession of land due to the fact that he was óðalborinn, i.e. he possessed land by óðal right.107 This status designation marked Icelanders in Norway out from other foreigners in the kingdom and appeared to afford the Icelanders an advantage of sorts, as merchants from countries other than Iceland had rights equivalent to those of the farming class.108 Whatever gain hǫldsréttr obtained for Icelanders in Norway, this was less than the status assigned to Norwegians in Iceland under a broad interpretation of réttr. The legal advantage obtained by Norwegians was due in no small part to the nature of native law. Icelandic law was less socially stratified than its Norwegian counterparts, so while Norwegians in Iceland were de facto Icelanders and enjoyed the same rights under law as the islanders, the legal rights of Icelanders in Norway were not as extensive and were restricted to a certain class. There is a certain irony in the association of Icelanders in Norway with óðal: this concept was connected with land ownership and, by extension, a right to a homeland or patria.109 By recognizing the Icelanders as óðalsmenn, the Ólafslög recognized their right to hereditary land in Norway, yet in the accounts of the migration from Norway contained in many of the Íslendingasögur, it is the king’s denial of the right of óðal that prompts some individuals to leave for Iceland. These accounts, while acknowledging the confiscation of family lands by Haraldr, rarely refer to óðal. There is some indication that, despite the retrospective importance attached to óðal by Icelandic authors, the concept may not have been entrenched in Norwegian society.110 What is significant is 107 NgL i, p. 67 [Ældre Gulathings-Lov, Ch. 185]; Gurevich, ‘Semantics of the Medieval Community’, pp. 525–540. 108 NgL i, p. 71 [Ældre Gulathings-Lov, Ch. 200]. 109 Gurevich, ‘Semantics of the Medieval Community’, p. 533; and Gurevich, ‘Wealth ­Bestowal’, p. 127. 110 Vogt, Function of Kinship, p. 212, draws attention to the lack of references to óðal in the sagas and “A Speech against the Bishops”, which was written after King Sverrir’s ­excommunication in 1198.

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that óðal, a right remembered as being denied by Haraldr hárfagri, was also a right remembered as being restored by Óláfr Haraldsson. One might wonder whether thirteenth-century Icelanders perceived the restoration of this right to them as tantamount to an acknowledgement of their honourable origins by the king. Perhaps the more relevant question to pose is what changed in the Icelandic–Norwegian relationship between the supposed negotiation of the treaty in the early eleventh century and the composition of the hn shortly after the mid-twelfth century, which foregrounds the less desirable ancestry of the island’s inhabitants. The Gulaþingslög states that: Icelanders shall have the same rights as the holdar while they are [in Norway] on their trading journeys, till they have lived here three winters and have established homes here; after that they shall have such [personal] rights as men testify to be theirs. All other aliens who come to this country shall have the freeman’s right, unless men testify to something different.111 After a period of three years, for the duration of which the status of the ­Icelander in Norway was frozen at the level of hǫldr, an Icelander was able, if he wished, to become a citizen of Norway. This provision of the Norwegian laws then acknowledges the possibility of permanent Icelandic settlement in Norway. Once granted his Norwegian citizenship, the Icelander’s legal rights were determined by the status to which he was entitled prior to his imposed three-year status of hǫldr, subject to its verification by other men. It is worth stressing, however, that although the hǫldr rights of the Icelanders were higher than the freeman or bændr rights granted to other non-natives in Norway, the later Bjarkeyjarréttr (Bjarkøy laws) granted all foreigners ‘yeomen’ or hǫldr rights. These laws are the earliest known Norwegian municipal laws and two surviving manuscript fragments for the Trondheim code have been dated to the mid-thirteenth century.112 The time lag between the Ólafslög and the Bjarkeyjarréttr suggests that while hǫldr rights may have benefited the Icelanders at the time the treaty was negotiated, within four generations this privilege was no longer the exclusive preserve of Icelanders in Norway, as all foreigners conducting business in Norway’s urban centres were granted the same status.

111 Larson, Earliest Norwegian Laws, p. 145; NgL i, p. 71 [Ældre Gulathings-Lov, Ch. 200]. 112 Brattegard, ‘Bjärköarätt,’ col. 660.

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Access to Resources and Inheritance Rights Prior to entering the Norwegian realm, the Icelanders were expected to pay landaurar (discussed under ‘economic obligations’ below). The payment of this toll permitted the Icelanders in Norway to obtain as much wood as they desired, as long as it was cut from a forest belonging to the king, and gave them access to water.113 Relative to the ‘special privilege’ – that of self-summoning cases which had been granted to the Norwegian king and, according to Jón Jóhannesson, all his subjects – these Icelandic entitlements to water and wood in Norway outwardly appear to be lower-level privileges. Both were important benefits, however; in particular, access to the king’s forests and building-grade timber, which was necessary for the construction of ships and dwellings. The other main right accorded the Icelanders under the treaty was the ability to claim Norwegian-based inheritances. If this right is read in light of the discussion of hǫldsréttr and óðal above and seen as the treaty’s attempt to compensate the Icelanders for the inheritances that were ‘lost’ by some of the early colonists, then one must wonder why the same inheritance rights enjoyed by Norwegians in Iceland were not accorded to Icelanders in Norway. An Icelander wishing to claim an inheritance in Norway had to be a second cousin or closer and make their claim within three winters.114 Until a valid claim was made, the possessions of the deceased were held by the Norwegian with whom the Icelander had been staying. In cases where a legitimate claimant was not forthcoming, it is likely that any land that was held in Norway reverted to the king, or to the man with whom the Icelander had been staying at the time of his death. Icelanders inheriting in Iceland, however, enjoyed an openended claim: their right to “the property here never lapses.”115 In cases where an ­Icelander was passing through the Norwegian realm after having a­ lready claimed an inheritance elsewhere, he was entitled to maintain full possession of these monies.116 Icelandic Obligations While the above may be classed as the ‘rights’ of the Icelanders in Norway, the other provisions within this section appear to have been drawn up in favour of the king. These shall be considered in more detail under the following headings: (a) economic obligations, (b) military obligations and (c) travel.

113 114 115 116

Grágás 1b, p. 195 [K248]; Laws ii, p. 211; di i, pp. 66, 69. Grágás 1b, p. 195 [K248]; Laws ii, p. 211. Grágás 1a, p. 239 [K125]; Laws ii, p. 19. Grágás 1b p. 196 [K248]; Laws ii, p. 211.

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(a) Economic Obligations The terms of the Ólafslög suggest that the Icelanders’ ultimate right was the freedom to travel to Norway. The treaty, however, placed restrictions on those islanders who intended to sail, restricting passage to those judged physically and financially suitable. Any individual intending to travel from Iceland to Norway had to demonstrate that they had sufficient financial means to make the trip, to support themselves and their household and to fulfil payment of the obligatory land-dues.117 The Norwegian king was apparently uncomfortable with the prospect of an influx of impoverished Icelanders entering his realm, a scenario that would have placed the Norwegian economy under additional strain.118 In the mid-eleventh century, a moratorium was put on the treaty’s travel qualifications as the island was in the throes of a famine. Saga tradition reports how, in these exceptional circumstances, the Norwegian king, Haraldr harðráði, permitted the impoverished to travel to Norway if they could find passage.119 The majority of the provisions in the section detailing the rights of Icelanders in Norway refer to the payment of the landaurar.120 These dues, as we have seen, are the subject of most of the indirect references to the Ólafslög in Íslendingabók and the sagas. This toll should not be confused with Haraldr hárfagri’s supposed landaurar, which applied to only those departing Norway.121 The landaurar payment due under the terms of the Ólafslög amounted to a mooring toll or disembarkation fee and applied to all those who travelled to Norway from Iceland. Exemptions were made in circumstances where the toll had already been levied elsewhere, for example if it had been discharged in the Shetland or Orkney islands, and in cases where a ship was on a ‘voyage of discovery,’ although the criteria for defining these latter ventures are not stipulated.122 The imposition of this financial imperative must have been a considerable burden on the Icelanders and would have limited their freedom

117 Grágás 1b, pp. 195–196 [K248]; Laws ii, p. 211. 118 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 152, 155, 158, writes about the pressures on the ­Norwegian grain harvest. This pressure was heightened in times where the harvest had been poor or when the king imposed a ban on grain exports. See, for instance, the case of Ásbjǫrn selsbani, recounted in Chapters 117–120 of Óláfs saga helga (íf xxvii, pp. 194–206). 119 íf xxviii, p. 119. 120 Grágás Ib, pp. 195–197 [K248]; Laws, ii, pp. 211–213; di i, pp. 65–70. The landaurar were not abolished until the thirteenth century. 121 íf i, pp. 5–6. 122 Grágás Ib, pp. 196, 197 [K249]; Laws, ii, pp. 211, 213.

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of travel. It also ensured that only those Icelanders financially capable of paying these tolls could travel between the two countries. (b) Military Obligations The Ólafslög makes two specific references to the presence of an enemy host in Norway (“viss se herr i noregi”).123 This scenario entitled the king to prevent Icelanders then present in Norway from returning to their homeland; apart from this, Icelanders in Norway were free to depart for whatever land they wished.124 In those instances when an enemy force was confirmed, however, and a general levy was afoot (“almenningr er úte”), Icelanders scylldir utfarar með konungi125 (must go on military service with the king). The levy was the means by which the Norwegian army was recruited. When the kingdom was perceived to be under threat, a general levy would be imposed on the realm’s subjects.126 Heimskringla describes how, in the days of Hákon góði, the laws included a stipulation on the manpower and number of ships each district owed to the king when a general levy was issued.127 This clause allowed for those men in Iceland to be treated as if they were subjects of the king: in this instance, they were virtual Norwegians. Icelanders could only be conscripted into the Norwegian army when (a) an enemy army was confirmed in Norway and (b) the general levy was instituted. There is no indication given as to how confirmation of an enemy presence in Norway could be obtained or precisely what might constitute an enemy army: whether a broad interpretation was employed to include the force of a foreign king, a challenger to the throne or some other domestic threat. This is an important point, for the Norwegian throne was particularly contested during the eleventh century. The rule of the Danish Sveinn (r. 1030–1035, as co-regent with his mother Álfífa) was particularly notable for the popular opposition provoked by the fiscal demands he made of his Norwegian subjects. His rule was challenged by two individuals. The first of these, Tryggvi, claimed to be the son of Óláfr Tryggvason, and invaded Norway to claim what he saw as his rightful inheritance. According to Heimskringla, this action caused Sveinn, the king in power, to summon a force from the north and raise the levy.128 Although Tryggvi’s assault on the throne was unsuccessful, a second claimant, Óláfr Haraldsson’s son Magnús, soon presented himself. Sveinn’s response to this threat was 123 124 125 126 127 128

Grágás Ib, p. 196 [K248]. Grágás Ib, p. 196 [K248]; di i, p. 66. Grágás Ib, p. 196 [K248]. On the levy (leiðangr), see Bagge, From Viking Stronghold, pp. 72–85. íf xxvi, pp. 175–176. íf xxvii, pp. 411–412.

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to call another levy.129 If Sveinn considered Tryggvi and Magnús to meet the criterion of ‘enemy’ as stipulated in provision nine of the Ólafslög, then we may speculate that Icelanders then present in Norway were conscripted into the king’s army in the early to mid-1030s. Furthermore, these individuals would not have been allowed to depart Norway for Iceland. The imposition of military obligations on Icelanders in Norway under this provision of the Ólafslög allowed for Icelandic conscription into the Norwegian royal army. Icelanders within the Norwegian army would then, effectively, owe allegiance to the Norwegian king for however long they served in this capacity. There appears to have been little concern expressed about how this ‘foreign’ element would operate within the army, or how long the service would last. The importance of the opportunity to increase the size of the royal army in a time of domestic crisis by conscripting Icelanders may reveal why the treaty stipulated that those Icelanders intending to travel to Norway had to be heill og hraustar.130 The sick, weak and poor were not welcome; they were of no benefit to the Norwegian realm in times of peace or peril. Norway only accepted financially independent and physically strong Icelanders. A policy of discrimination, as opposed to one of inclusion, marked Norwegian legislation concerning incoming Icelanders. (c) Travel In times of peace, the Icelanders were able to travel freely within the Norwegian realm and also to any country they wished (“til hvers lands er þeir vilja”).131 This provision may have been included in order to assuage Icelandic fears that a travel ban, such as that described in Laxdæla saga, could be imposed by the king at will.132 A ban on ship traffic between Iceland and Norway was tantamount to a trade ban, and the North Atlantic island was reliant on Norwegian imports to supplement its domestic resources. The inclusion of these travel rights also suggests that attempts may have been made by the Norwegian king in the past to assert his control over Icelanders when they were outside his domain.133 Norwegian Perceptions of the Icelanders The treaty concludes with the statement that “King Óláfr the Saint gave these rights and this law to the Icelanders.”134 Boulhosa has remarked that this­ 129 íf xxviii, p. 10. 130 Grágás Ib, p. 196 [K248]. 131 Grágás Ib, p. 196 [K248]. 132 íf v, p. 116. 133 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 69. 134 Grágás Ib, p. 197 [K248]: “At þan rétt gaf olafr en hælgi islendingom eða betra.”

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statement casts the Icelanders in the role of “the passive receivers of the king’s law.”135 Such passivity might be expected of a king’s subject or from a conquered people: the Icelanders of the eleventh century were neither. The fact that the king desired to ‘self-summon’ cases to protect his subjects from legal proceedings in an aggressive environment sits awkwardly with his desire to augment the Norwegian army with these people in times of crisis. Did a time of domestic crisis and the need for manpower override any concerns as to the source of this personnel. Equally, the perception of the island as being settled by criminals and offering refuge to Norwegian lawbreakers seems at loggerheads with the granting of an ancestral noble right in Norway to the Icelanders. The most frequent reasons given for the movement of Icelanders between their homeland and Norway, according to the saga narratives, was in order to acquire knowledge of another country and to make their name there, usually by entering the service of the Norwegian king; to trade or obtain goods there; or to claim an inheritance. The terms of the Ólafslög allowed and encouraged travel between the two countries, though this was restricted to those who could pay. It also enabled Icelanders to claim Norwegian-based inheritances although, again, these claims were more restrictive than the inheritance rights enjoyed by Norwegians to Icelandic-based claims. While the rights of the Icelanders to make use of the king’s forests and access to water were valuable privileges, the hǫldsréttr may have become less of a gain over time. The hǫldsréttr appear to have emphasized the legal status of Icelanders in Norway vis-à-vis other foreigners for only three generations or so, following which all foreigners engaged in commercial activities in Norway were granted a similar status under the terms of the Bjarkeyjarréttr. The preserved form of the Gulaþingslög from the mid-thirteenth century, meanwhile, allocates hǫldsréttr to Icelanders trading in Norway.136 This goes against the terms of the Ólafslög in which all Icelanders in Norway were entitled to hǫldsréttr under Norwegian law, not just merchants. This appears somewhat incongruous. It may indicate that by the thirteenth century a drop in Icelanders travelling to Norway for purposes other than trade had taken place. It is, however, very difficult to ascertain this, or indeed the actual impact of any of the treaty’s terms due to the lack of references to the agreement and its provisions in near contemporary sources. Outwardly it appears that, as a result of the economic and military obligations imposed by the Norwegian king on Icelanders travelling to Norway, together with the more favourable inheritance rights for Norwegians in Iceland and their p ­ rotection

135 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 64. 136 NgL i, p. 71. [Ældre Gulathings-Lov, Ch. 200].

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under Icelandic law, the Icelanders may have gained less from the Ólafslög than their Norwegian counterparts.

A Revised Interpretation

Jón Jóhannesson considered the ultimate beneficiary of the Ólafslög to be the Norwegian king and interpreted each of its provisions as obtaining advantage over the islanders.137 Boulhosa has offered a more moderate assessment. She perceives the treaty as “present[ing] a mutual balance between duty and privileges”;138 it appears, however, that the obligations imposed on the Icelanders – military service, payment of landaurar, emigration restrictions, prosecution of cases in Iceland on behalf of the king, granting of legal protection to Norwegians in Iceland – far exceed the ‘appanage’ granted them, namely maintaining ownership of inheritances claimed in other jurisdictions, exemption from landaurar in specific circumstances, access to wood and water and hǫldsréttr in Norway. Outwardly, at least, the list of Icelandic ‘duties’ appears to exceed their ‘privileges.’ Caution must, however, be exercised in assessing the above interpretations; both overlook some of the nuances of what is remembered as a much more complex, intricate and multi-faceted relationship between the two countries. This relationship was defined by its subtleties as much as the sense of unease generated by the often unpredictable behaviour of the Norwegian king.139 A new perspective on medieval Icelandic external affairs has been offered by Baldur Þórhallsson. Although his interests do not lie specifically with the Ólafslög, he undertook an investigation of the degree to which medieval Iceland benefitted from the economic and military shelter of its neighbours between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. Using the centre-periphery model from international relations, Baldur Þórhallsson suggests that the island’s need for shelter was determined by a greater need: that of engagement with the wider world. The island ultimately paid a price for obtaining access to the global community, namely the transfer of political authority to the Norwegian crown.140 Despite making only brief references to the ninth and eleventh centuries and the Ólafslög, his analysis of the Free State’s external relationships 137 Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, i, pp. 135–139. 138 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 85. 139 For a discussion of unpredictability and its use in the exercise of power by the Norwegian kings, see Orning, Unpredictability and Presence. 140 Baldur Þórhallsson, ‘Iceland’s External Affairs,’ pp. 5–37.

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and, in particular, the degree to which the island may have benefitted from economic and military shelter from Norway, is significant. By placing the rights of the Icelanders in the context of shelter – that the treaty provided an economic and military shield from “Norwegian sea-power”141 – a reinterpretation of the Ólafslög can be undertaken. This revised understanding of the treaty suggests (1) that the need to obtain shelter lay at the core of the Ólafslög; (2) that the rights of the Icelanders assume an additional significance as a result; and (3) that the Ólafslög may ultimately have contributed to the survival of the Icelandic Free State. Rather than being an agent of the deconstruction of early Icelandic independence, the treaty may actually have extended the island’s autonomy, without which it would have come under the aegis of the Norwegian king significantly earlier.

Military Shelter

Outwardly there appeared to have been no need to obtain military shelter from an external agent and the preserved Icelandic law-codes contain no reference to raising an army or to the legal procedures that would have to be put in place should the island ever come under attack from an external enemy. Although Heimskringla is infused with the preoccupations of the thirteenth century – increased Norwegian involvement in Iceland, Icelandic independence and its preservation – and was written some two hundred years after the promulgation of the Ólafslög was remembered, the text does refer to this potential threat. If we tentatively accept Konrad Maurer’s dating of the treaty to 1024, then King Óláfr Haraldsson’s request for Grímsey may be suggested as a possible stimulus for the negotiations that ultimately led to the Ólafslög.142 While Heimskringla does not refer to the treaty directly, the inclusion of the Grímsey episode is suggestive of the complexities of the eleventh-century relationship between Iceland and Norway and how these were remembered. This compendium of konungasögur has offered scholars a number of different interpretations of the Iceland–Norway relationship. For Magnús Fjalldal, it is a propagandistic work that functions as a warning to the Icelanders of the

141 Baldur Þórhallsson, ‘Iceland’s External Affairs,’ p. 5. 142 Maurer, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung, p. 119. Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, p. 70, believes the treaty to have already been in force when Óláfr inn helgi dispatched Þórarinn Nefjólfsson to Iceland in 1024 to convey his requests for friendship and Grímsey of those attending the Alþingi.

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dangers of the Norwegian kings;143 by contrast Ármann Jakobsson and Ted Andersson both contend that its author bears little or no resentment towards the Norwegian kings, with Andersson in particular arguing that the lack of anti-­ Norwegian sentiment is indicative of an effort to encourage amicable relations between the two countries.144 Whether the work of Snorri or some other individual, Heimskringla is largely devoid of the anti-Norwegian sentiment of Morkinskinna. It is significant for the purposes of the present discussion that its author was an educated, well-travelled thirteenth-century Icelander, who had personal experience of domestic politics, Norway, the Norwegian king and, more especially, the points at which these disparate elements converged. Heimskringla’s portrayal of Óláfr Haraldsson provides a useful interpretative framework for the Grímsey request and the Icelanders’ reaction to the king’s wishes. Not only was its author fascinated by the game of politics, he also appears to have taken more than a passing interest in military matters and those he regarded as military strategists.145 Óláfr Haraldsson was one such individual. Óláfs saga helga describes how, before he claimed the Norwegian throne, Óláfr served King Æthelred in his attempt to regain control of England and, in one episode, used deception in his plan to capture and destroy London Bridge.146 This overseas experience in war and tactical manoeuvres appeared to have served the future Norwegian regent well, for Heimskringla reveals that Óláfr Haraldsson, the individual whom Ármann Jakobsson considers to be the heroic figure of this compendium,147 was remembered as having harboured ambitions about extending his power to the island community. Heimskringla describes a king who attempts to direct Icelandic affairs remotely. Óláfr Haraldsson’s actions, which take on different forms and intensify over time, are suggestive of something approximating a distinct policy or strategy on the part of the king towards the islanders.148 He forces changes 143 Fjalldal, ‘Beware of Norwegian Kings,’ pp. 455–468. 144 Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi, pp. 142–143, 280–286; Theodore M. Andersson, ‘The Politics of Snorri Sturluson,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 93, 1 (1994), pp. 55–78; but see the different opinions held by Björn Þorsteinsson, Íslenzka þjóðveldið, p. 291; and Ciklamini, Snorri Sturluson, p. 65. 145 Magnús Fjalldal, ‘By Means of Deception: Snorri Sturluson as a Military Strategist,’ Neophilologus, 99 (2015), pp. 113–114. 146 This episode is described in Chapters 12–13 of Óláfs saga helga in Heimskringla. It is also recounted on two occasions in Saga Óláfs konungs Haraldssonar in Flateyjarbók with a number of adjustments in the second telling, not least of which is that Knútr is the recipient of Óláfr’s aid. 147 Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi, p. 283. 148 Fjalldal, ‘Beware of Norwegian Kings,’ p. 460.

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to the ­island’s native law-codes when, upon learning that the Icelanders are continuing certain heathen practices, he demanded their leaders ensure that these same practices are stamped out. He then makes a gesture of goodwill towards the island’s spiritual succour by donating building materials to construct a church adjacent to the Alþingi once the requisite legal adjustments had been made.149 We might read these two incursions as the Norwegian king having successfully challenged the terms of native law in the first instance, before inserting himself into the physical landscape of the island’s most august native institution once his demands had been enacted. Óláfr also actively cultivated friendship with the most powerful Icelandic goðar, sending them ‘gifts of friendship,’ thereby establishing a reciprocal relationship based on vingjafir with these chieftains, whilst taking others, such as Þorleikr Bollason and Þorkell Eyjólfsson, into his service.150 By taking the island’s leading men or their sons into his hirð (retinue), Óláfr seems to be ensuring that he has retainers in Iceland that are well-connected, politically and socially. Determined to capitalize on his Iceland-based friendships, the king is said to have sent an Icelander, Þórarinn Nefjólfsson, to formally seek the ­friendship of the Icelanders at the Alþingi. The discussion between the king and the islanders was to take place at the focal point of Icelandic life, law and governance, and poses an interesting contrast between the outwardly consensual and ‘democratic’ political environment of the islanders and the coercive a­ uthority exercised by the Norwegian king. The offer of Óláfr Haraldsson – that “he will be your king if you will be his subjects”151 – was met with a favourable response from the islanders, who were willing to accept the regent’s friendship. The islanders did not merely serve in the king’s hirð or as his court skalds, they also engaged in reciprocal amity on behalf of themselves, on behalf of their community and on behalf of their people. What is particularly striking is that the apparently seamless transition of the Icelanders from independent people to 149 íf xxvii, pp. 73–74, 77 and 214. 150 íf xxvii, p. 214. For friendship in the Viking Age, see Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Den vennlige vikingen: vennskapets makt i Norge og på Island ca. 900–1300 (Oslo, 2010); Friendship and Social Networks in Scandinavia c.1000–1800, eds Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Thomas Småberg (Turnhout, 2013); E. Paul Durrenger and Gísli Pálsson, ‘The Importance of Friendship in the Absence of States According to he Icelandic Sagas,’ in The Anthropology of Friendship, eds Sandra Bell and Simon Coleman (Oxford, 1999), pp. 59–77. For gift-giving, see ­Gurevich, ‘Wealth and Gift-Bestowal,’ pp. 126–138; Elisabeth Vestergaard, ‘Gift-giving, Hoarding, and Outdoings,’ in Social Approaches, ed. Samson, pp. 97–104; and Timothy Earle, ‘Production and Exchange in Prehistory’ in Companion Encyclopaedia of Archaeology, ed. Graeme Barker (London, 1999), pp. 608–635. 151 íf xxvii, p. 215.

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royal subjects by means of a reciprocal friendship is left unresolved within the saga’s account of this episode. The king’s request for friendship reveals itself to be secondary to his desire to gain a landed position within Iceland: Grímsey.152 This small, northernmost island lay off Eyjafjörður and was “strategically the most important fjord in the north of Iceland.”153 The king’s demand is directed to the man whom he believes to hold the most power in the community with the authority to decide the island’s fate: Guðmundr of Mǫðruvellir. Although the king’s proposal found favour with Guðmundr, who would rather be in good standing with the king than share possession of an island, his brother, who the Norðlendingar believe is the man who can flest gløggst at sjá (see clearest in all things), mounted a strenuous objection.154 While Einarr is not averse to cultivating friendship with the Norwegian monarch, he is opposed to paying tribute to the king, an act which he sees as imposing ófrelsi155 (bondage) on all who live in Iceland. Resolutely against paying any tribute to the Norwegian king, he is even more robustly opposed to ceding any foothold to a king, however distant. Einarr’s speech is the most explicit, strongly-worded warning to the islanders to stay away from the kings of Norway. Using Einarr as his mouthpiece, the author of Heimskringla states in unambiguous terms that the island was alert to the military threat posed to its autonomy by an external agent.156 The words langskipum (longships, in this case warships) and útlendr (foreign) are both used to refer to the host of men that could launch an assault on the island community.157 If Óláfr Haraldsson did make an attempt to obtain Grímsey or some other foothold in Iceland, then the Ólafslög might be interpreted as the means by which the islanders obtained and secured shelter from the Norwegian king’s sea power.158 This point is difficult to prove definitively: this episode may have 152 Grímsey was common land belonging to the local community. The refusal of the king’s request may then be interpreted as the refusal of the island community to cede their land to the Norwegian monarch. 153 Richard F. Tomasson, Iceland: The First New Society (Minneapolis, 1980), p. 10. 154 íf xxvii, p. 216. 155 íf xxvii, p. 216. 156 íf xxvii, p. 216. On the matter of Grímsey, Einarr says: “But about Grímsey I would state this, that even if nothing is taken from it for supplying people with food, a host of men could find food there. And if some army from abroad sailed from there with their warships, I think many a farmer would find himself in difficulty.” It is, however, difficult to reconcile the report of Einarr’s speech with the terms of a treaty already in existence. 157 íf xxvii, p. 216. 158 Following the refusal of the islanders to cede Grímsey, Óláfr makes another series of demands, that the island’s law-code be brought into line with those in force in Norway,

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been included simply to address in direct terms the notion of Icelandic independence or, at least, thirteenth-century perceptions of Icelandic independence. Whether the episode amounts to a literary device or ‘false memory’ is moot. Both the episode and Einarr’s speech are suggestive of the anxieties thirteenth-century islanders had about the Norwegian king. These concerns were based in reality: the opening decades of the thirteenth century had been characterized by the tense relationship between Iceland and Norway. Conflict between the two countries, the imposition of a trade ban and a proposed Norwegian invasion of the island that was only averted by the intervention of Snorri Sturluson must have all informed and deeply coloured the context of the Grímsey episode.159 The efforts of Óláfr Haraldsson to gain the friendship of the Icelandic chieftains and obtain taxes from them described in Heimskringla is paralleled by the thirteenth-century endeavours of Hákon Hákonarson and his own political strategy vis-à-vis Iceland and its local leaders. As such, the Grímsey episode may amount to a temporal relocation of the memory of more recent events. Einarr’s reference to the tribute sought by the king as skattgjafar is certainly suggestive of a later political context.160 The Norse tributary islands paid skatt to the Norwegian king. The word is, according to Imsen, indelibly ­associated with the expansion of the Norwegian realm.161 Following their submission, the islanders were duty-bound to pay skattgjafir to the Norwegian king. It was, however, a distinctive type of gift, at least, according to the author of Heimskringla: its payment ensured the Norwegian king would endow the island community with new laws, peace and his protection.162 In some respects, the Ólafslög fulfils these criteria. Whether the events described in Heimskringla actually took place precisely as recounted, or indeed at all, the association of a request for a tangible portion of the island’s territory by a named eleventh-century Norwegian king known for his legal reforms is surely significant. The island’s position within

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that the Icelanders should pay him compensation for the deaths of his subjects slain in ­Iceland, and that they should make a payment of a tax of one penny or one-tenth of an ell of homespun per head. íf xxvii, p. 241. For details of this economic conflict, see Íslendinga saga in Sturlunga Saga, i, pp. ­234–238, 243–244; Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, I, pp. 283–291; Wanner, Snorri Sturluson, pp. 45–46; Andersson, The Partisan Muse, pp. ­119–120; and Halldór Hemannsson, Sæmund Sigfússon and the Oddaverjar (Ithaca NY, 1932), p. 19. íf xxvii, p. 216. Imsen, ‘From Tributes to Taxes,’ p. 13. Steinar Imsen, ‘Royal Dominion in the Skattlands,’ in Rex Insularum, ed. Imsen, p. 79, writes that “Paying taxes was associated with bondage.” Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘Becoming a “skattland,”’ p. 118.

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this ­particular Norwegian king’s sphere of interest was both a plausible and, possibly, a deliberate association. While it is difficult to trust accounts that originate in the thirteenth century, it is apparent from Konungsbók and Heimskringla that the eleventh-century relationship between Iceland and Norway was remembered as being more complex, incorporating a deeper level of royal engagement, which, if true, is particularly significant given that Norwegian domestic politics during this period would have demanded the attention of the king. Yet while we might argue, like Fjalldal, that Heimskringla was a warning to the Icelanders about becoming too involved with the Norwegian kings, it can also be read as the royally-endorsed strategy later monarchs would use to bring the island under their control in the thirteenth century. It is surprising that the military strategies outlined by the author of Heimskringla and attributed to the likes of Óláfr Haraldsson were not recognized by the islanders for the potential dangers they posed. Heimskringla may indeed have been written as a warning, but it was a warning that went unheeded.

Economic Shelter

The matter of economic shelter provides a second, somewhat more plausible reason for the existence of the Ólafslög. Medieval Iceland never attained the status of a small, prosperous state. This peripheral community, together with those in Orkney and the Faeroes, fell within an itinerant mercantile jurisdiction, which was linked to the centre (Norway) by the routes sailed by ­Norwegian merchants.163 Iceland was dependent on Norway for particular imports, such as building-grade wood, and it appears that disagreements over shipping and an attempt by the Norwegian king to monopolize this trade and restrict Icelandic access to external markets may have lain behind the Ólafslög.164 One reading of the treaty’s terms promotes a degree of economic engagement that was 163 Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘The Norse Community,’ p. 63. On the matter of trade conducted between the tributary islands and Norway, see, for example, Knut Helle, Bergen bys historie, vol. 1. Kongssete og kjøpstad: fra opphavet til 1536 (Bergen, 1982), pp. 160–170, 307–310, 348–350, 360–364; Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verðlag: Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld (Reykjavik, 1991), pp. 507–515; Hallvard Magerøy, Soga om austmenn: Nordmenn som siglde til Island og Grønland i mellomalderen (Oslo, 1993), pp. 30–40; Helgi Þorláksson, ‘King and Commerce,’ pp. 149–173; Boulhosa, ‘Of Fish and Ships,’ pp. 175–197. 164 Bogi Th. Melsteð, ‘Ferðir, siglingar og samgöngur milli Íslands og annara landa á dögum þjóðveldisins,’ Safn til sögu Íslands og íslenzkra bókmenta, 4 (1907–1915), 585–907. This latter investigation into Icelandic travel and trade in the thirteenth century concluded both

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beneficial to both parties: the islanders could travel to Norway and trade their indigenous cloth (vaðmál) and, later, stockfish (skreið) as well as luxury goods such as pelts, falcons and, in the case of Auðunn and Ingimundr, polar bears.165 Although the island’s markets were largely Norwegian, the possibility to sail to Norway and, from there, elsewhere, opened up the Icelanders’ external trade options. Both travel types were guaranteed under the terms of the Ólafslög, although restrictions were placed on departing Norway in times when that country was under threat from an enemy host. By officially sanctioning travel between the two countries, the shipping routes were kept open; as such, the island obtained economic shelter from Norway because a travel ban would have amounted to a trade embargo. Two of the most consistent Norwegian imports since the island’s settlement were timber and grain. The island’s capacity for domestic grain production was limited at best and grain imports were required to supplement the native harvest.166 These were particularly essential to the island community’s survival in times of hardship, such as in 1057/58, when Haraldr Sigurðarson ­(1046–1066) sent a number of ships laden with grain to the island.167 The author of Fagrskinna writes that “when there was a famine, king Harald permitted four ships of flour to sail to Iceland.”168 In broad terms Icelandic access to Norwegian grain was dependent on two main factors: its availability and willing merchants. The Norwegian harvest was affected by ecological factors: the land’s climate and physical terrain meant that grain could only be grown in certain areas, and a good crop was never certain.169 While they may have been unable to exert any influence over the were vulnerable and precarious. For a summary of Bogi Th. Melsteð’s study, its influence and shortcomings, see Boulhosa, Icelanders, pp. 126–132. 165 Vaðmál was used as a standard unit of value in medieval Iceland. íf xxvi, p. 212, recounts how Haraldr gráfeldr obtained his nickname ‘Grey Cloak’ from an Icelandic sheepskin cloak. For vaðmál, see Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verlag. On Icelandic exports more generally, see Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 13, 83; and G.J. Marcus, ‘The Norse Traffic with Iceland’, The Economic History Review, n.s. 9, 3 (1957), pp. 408–410. The gifting of polar bears is described in ÍF XXIII, pp. 217–223; ÍF VIII, pp. 42–45; and ÍF I, p. 219 respectively. For skreið and the stockfish markets, see Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verlag, pp. 455; Jón Jóhannesson, Íslendinga saga, II, pp. 139–141; and Björn Þorsteinsson, ‘Island’, in Det nordiske syn på forbindelsen mellem Hansestæderne og Norden: Det nordiske historikermøde i Århus 7.-9. august 1957, ed. Vagn Dybdahl (Aarhus, 1957; repr. 1972), pp. 165–195. 166 E. Paul Durrenberger, The Dynamics of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy and Literature (Iowa City, 1992), pp. 45–46, notes grain was needed for the beer consumed at the chieftains’ feasts. See also Durrenberger, ‘Chiefly Consumption in Commonwealth Iceland,’ Northern Studies, 25 (1988), 108–120. 167 íf xxiii, p. 205. 168 íf xxix, p. 261. 169 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, p. 152.

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success of the Norwegian grain harvest or the Norwegian appetite for their vaðmál, mórent or hafnarvaðmál (clothing-grade woollens), the Icelanders could at least ensure that Norwegian merchants enjoyed protection in Iceland. These individuals did not rely on Icelandic goods as much as the islanders depended on their Norwegian imports; consequently, these men could actively exercise their option not to sail to the island to trade if they considered their position there insecure. Securing the rights of Norwegian merchants in Iceland was seen a means of encouraging the presence of these individuals on the island especially as, Gelsinger argues, the islanders became even more reliant on Norwegian merchants making the trip to the island as the Icelanders went abroad less often themselves.170 Icelandic timber was inferior to its Norwegian counterpart, particularly for ship- and house-building. Some of the early settlers brought their own building materials with them. Örlygr, for instance, was provided with timber suitable to construct a church by the Hebridean Bishop Patrek.171 It is probable that, as reports about the colonization reached those who had yet to depart Norway, many prospective settlers must have made arrangements to bring timber with them. It is unlikely, for instance, that either Bjǫrn enn austroeni, who constructed a home at Borgarholt in Bjarnarhöfn that átti rausnarbú (had a great style) and Þórólfr mostrarskeggi who, in addition to his own dwelling “constructed a large temple that he dedicated to Thor,” would have been able to erect these types of buildings without having ready access to good quality wood.172 The value of building-grade timber (kjör-víðr) is suggested by the manner in which it is used as a gift by two Norwegian kings: Haraldr hárfagri rewards Ingimundr inn gamli for his gift of two polar bear cubs with a ship laden with timber (viðarfarmi),173 while Óláfr Haraldsson sends timber to construct a church at Þingvellir together with a church bell.174 The access to royal forests and timber provided under the Ólafslög may have generated additional traffic between the two countries in the early to mid-eleventh century as the sons of the native goðar sought passage on Norwegian merchant vessels to sell their surplus vaðmál and build a ship of their own while they were over there. The Norwegian king was obviously acutely aware of the potential benefits to be accrued from promoting Icelandic–Norwegian trade: not only did the royal 170 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 173, 158–159. 171 íf I,pp. 52, 54 (S15); 53, 55 (H15). 172 íf i, pp. 122, 125. Þorkell Eyjólfsson travelled to Norway for the express purpose of obtaining timber: íf v, pp. 215–217. 173 íf i, p. 219. Other examples of wood/timber as a gift include íf iii, p. 132, and íf xi, p. 155. See also chapter 1 of Grænlendinga saga: íf iv, p. 246. 174 ÍF XXVII, p. 214; ÍF XXIX, p. 261.

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coffers fill with the landing-dues paid by those islanders entering the Norwegian realm, but trading sites that were royal foundations must also have generated a significant income. Commercial activity resulted in the development of Nidaros (c.997) and Bergen (c.1075) and these centres contributed to the emergence of a permanent Norwegian class of professional merchants. Norwegian domination of trade between Iceland and Norway and vice versa effectively extinguished any competition from Icelandic traders.175 Norwegian merchants, who were not liable to the landaurar under the terms of the Ólafslög, must have made a competitive gain at the expense of their Icelandic counterparts as trade with Iceland became even more profitable. Meanwhile Norwegian traders, who frequently overwintered in Iceland, now enjoyed legal protection when in Iceland, and could supply the island with goods and commodities that would otherwise have been unavailable or in scarce supply. The autonomous existence of the Free State in economic terms could thus be safeguarded by the Ólafslög, which compensated it somewhat for its peripheral location. The presence of Norwegian merchants in Iceland also resulted in a shift towards domestic investment and presaged the rise of a small number of ­dominant political and territorial families. For an Icelandic trader to be ­successful, he had to spend prolonged periods of time abroad and away from whatever domestic interests, in particular the political ones, he might have had.176 Icelandic trade depended on the land: the most valuable export commodity, vaðmál, was a woollen cloth. The more land an individual possessed, the more sheep he could raise and, by extension, the more vaðmál he could produce. Rather than sacrifice their domestic interests in favour of trading on a part-time basis, Icelanders were happy for Norwegian merchants to fulfil these roles and instead transmute their wealth into extending their property, particularly as, following an increase in the population, there was available labour to work the land. Land became a source of domestic wealth and its price increased accordingly with wealthy islanders free to add to their land-holdings safe in the knowledge that Norwegian merchants would convey essential foreign imports to the island.177 The economic shelter provided to the island under the Ólafslög did more than ensure its subsistence. Norwegian merchants in Iceland did not merely transport goods to the island: these men provided a key point of access to power and political resources for the goðar, whose monopolization of Norwegian

175 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 164–168. 176 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 31–32. 177 Gelsinger, Icelandic Enterprise, pp. 159–161.

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imports cemented their local power and financial status.178 Control over these trading and information routes was of particular importance in a country that lacked urban centres. Their cultivation of (largely) positive relationships with Norwegian merchants provided for a continuous level of social engagement between Icelanders and Norwegians in Iceland. But the flow of both information and luxury goods into Iceland was predicated on the island’s relationship with Norway: any interference by the king would cut off access to these resources and, by default, siphon native political power away from the goðar.179 Nonetheless, while the treaty ensured the preservation of the economic fate of the Norwegian merchant in Iceland – for the goðar were always desirous of luxury items – the part-time Icelandic trader in Norway was left out in the cold, unable to compete with a professionalized, rich, Norwegian mercantile class.180 Conclusion The Ólafslög ensured continued interaction between the native goðar and the Norwegian austmenn. It also provided for another type of consistent social engagement: that between noble young Icelanders and their Norwegian counterparts in Norway. The possibility of travelling to Norway and making a name for oneself at the king’s court had always been an option available to politically ambitious young men. The conditions imposed by the treaty on the financial resources and physical capabilities of those intending to travel to Norway meant that only wealthy Icelanders were eligible. Invariably these men were the sons of goðar or men who aspired to having their own goðorð one day. Norway provided an opportunity for political acculturation. The accounts of the Íslendingasögur give no suggestion that the Norwegian kings were against cultivating favourable relationships with the Icelanders. Mutually beneficial friendships were actively pursued by some, including Óláfr Haraldsson, who clearly embarked on an amity-based assault by sending ‘gifts of friendship’ to the most powerful native chieftains, who in turn responded by sending the king “such things as were available there and which they expected would please 178 This is well-attested in the Íslendingasögur: examples include Skeggi (Þórðar saga hreðu), Hrafn (Vápnfirðinga saga), Skúli (Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa) and Þorsteinn (Gunnlaugs saga ormstunga). 179 Callow, ‘Landscape, Tradition and Power,’ p. 287, discusses the king’s interference in the context of the rise of the höfðingjar in thirteenth-century Dalir. 180 Sigurður Líndal, ‘Ísland og umheimurinn,’ in Saga Íslands, i, ed. Sigurður Líndal, pp. ­199–223; Baldur Þórhallsson, ‘Iceland’s External Affairs,’ p. 14.

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him.”181 Although Norwegian court circles were at some physical remove from domestic Icelandic politics, being a king’s man provided an opportunity for an islander to engage with men of noble status from Norway and elsewhere. Those men who had entered into service or friendship with the king could conduct their affairs in both Iceland and Norway, safe in the knowledge that they enjoyed his protection. To what extent this protection challenged that of the goðar, whose power was based on their þingmenn, is another matter. Of more importance is that while service with the Norwegian king came to be seen as something akin to a qualification for domestic political office, the pivot of domestic politics appears to have shifted from the island to the Norwegian royal court. The Ólafslög provided an economic shield for Iceland; this shelter assured the island’s survival, but it came at some considerable cost. For Baldur Þórhallsson, this price was the eventual formal submission of the island to the Norwegian king in the thirteenth century. I would suggest, however, that this development came much earlier. Inexorably the central locus of Icelandic political power was transferred from the periphery (the island) and its decisionmaking institutions (the Alþingi) to the centre (Norway) through the increased interaction of the serving goðar and their sons with the Norwegian king and his representatives. Icelanders became the bearers of Norwegian royal tradition, repackaging native oral culture for the needs of the king and his court. Icelanders were subservient to Norwegian in economic and military terms, but when it came to culture and, in particular, the ‘conversion of cultural capital,’ the islanders made initial gains. The formalization of the relationship between the two countries enshrined in the Ólafslög arguably led to the gradual erosion of Icelandic political independence. While the treaty may have been negotiated and endorsed to ensure that the island was shielded from Norway, that country ended up providing political shelter to the island’s elite. All three elements – military, economic and political – added an additional level of identity and affiliation to the Iceland–Norway relationship. The island’s autonomy was preserved, but its people had moved closer to the orbit of the Norwegian king. As this distance was eaten away, thirteenth-century Icelanders sought to negotiate their relationship with Norway. This was a relationship in which they had always desired to be seen as an equal partner. Their accounts of the settlement, first-law code and change of faith all included a Norwegian component. This component, as we have seen, was stressed by early Icelandic historiographers 181 íf xxvii, p. 214. Einarr’s speech suggests what some of these gifts may have been: “hauka eða hesta, tjǫld eða segl eða aðra þá hluti” (p. 216) – hawks, horses, tents and sails, amongst other things.

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in order to establish the historical relationship between the two countries and validate the very existence of the island community. The preservation of the Ólafslög allowed that community to emphasize and reaffirm the ‘historical’ rights and privileges they had been awarded by an eleventh-century king as part of their wider strategy to preserve their special status vis-à-vis Norway in the thirteenth century.

chapter 5

Icelanders and Norwegians A recent study on the Norse sea world between 1100 and 1400 has suggested that this geographic space was neither static nor fixed but was defined by the permeability of its perimeter, which allowed for cross-border cultural, social and political interaction.1 The exchange of resources that took place within this space was not restricted to commercial or legal relationships or modes of cultural exchange; it also resulted in the creation of transnational spaces, the points at which not only concepts, symbols and material culture converged, but also people and their identities.2 While cognizant of the cultural, linguistic and other similarities that existed between them, Icelanders recalled that, by the early eleventh century, they had officially been acknowledged as different from their Norwegian cousins by the Norwegian king, Óláfr Haraldsson. Equally, the islanders themselves recognized that they were not quite the same as their Norwegian counterparts. These contrasts are articulated in the descriptions of encounters between Icelanders and Norwegians that took place on the social plane, the level of human interaction. Such episodes are found in the Icelandic-based Íslendingasögur as well as the Norwegian-situated konungasögur, notably the þættir embedded within Morkinskinna. Collectively they reveal how the early Icelandic imagination perceived and dealt with Norwegians, and disclose how the differences between Icelanders and ­Norwegians were recalled, remembered and renegotiated.

Issues of Identity

Ethnogenesis has become a buzzword in early medieval studies, where it refers to the formation of peoples that took place during the migration period of Late Antiquity. Debates about origin, once dominated by nationalism and national history, have become commonplace over the past five decades.3 The 1 Imsen, ‘Introduction,’ pp. 16–17. 2 Faist, ‘Transnational Social Spaces,’ pp. 213–247. 3 Some of the more useful volumes for the present study include Mats Roslund, Guests in the House: Cultural Transmission between Slavs and Scandinavians 900 to 1300  a.d., trans. Alan Crozier (Leiden, 2007); Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554 (­Cambridge, 1997); and Eric Christiansen, The Norsemen in the Viking Age (Oxford, 2002). In

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discussion has generated little consensus, however: there is a lack of agreement on an accepted terminology; a lack of communication between different disciplines, some of which prioritize some sources and source types over others; and a corresponding gap between theory and application. The concept of ethnicity itself is a “modern construct rather than a contemporary category”4 and forcing the sources to coalesce with a modern conceptual framework has thus hindered rather than progressed our understanding of medieval identity. What has become increasingly apparent is that ethnicity and identity are not objective, readily identifiable phenomena, and that identity, in particular, has subjective and situational characteristics. Studies of ethnogenesis have tended to focus on the peoples of Continental Europe, such as the Franks, Goths, Avars and Lombards, for whom there is available documentary evidence. Until recently pre-Viking and Viking Scandinavia had not been subjected to a similar scrutiny.5 This was due in part to the presumption of scholars that, since the Scandinavian region was united linguistically and its people shared many commonalities, a uniform and identifiable ‘Viking Age culture’ existed throughout the area. In recent decades, however, Scandinavian scholarship has attempted to ‘decolonize the Viking Age’ and directed its energies towards the historical definition of peoples; the archaeologically-based identification of disparate culture groups; the interrelationships that existed between different culture groups; and state formation.6 What has emerged from these investigations, undertaken by Fredrik Svanberg and others, is an enhanced understanding of more localized identities and their interaction with other, different identities.7 Such approaches are influenced by the work of the Norwegian anthropologist, Fredrik Barth, who believed that an ethnic identity, by necessity, was maintained in opposition to other ethnic identities, the expression of which was heightened in instances where different groups interacted, whether in cooperation or competition for

addition to these monographs are a number of i­ mportant essay collections including Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe, eds Ildar H. Garipzanov, Patrick J. Geary and Przemysław Urbańczyk (Turnhout, 2008); From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms, ed. Thomas F.X. Noble (New York, 2006); On Barbarian Identity, ed. Gillett; and Strategies of Distinction, eds Pohl and Reimitz. 4 Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity’, p. 16. 5 Christiansen’s study, Norsemen, was published in 2002. Both Jenny Jochens and Peter Sawyer have been critical of it, the latter lamenting its “misrepresentations, misunderstandings and mistakes.” For further see Sawyer’s review in English Historical Review, 117, 474 (2002), p. 1251. 6 Roslund, Guests in the House, p. 102. 7 Fredrik Svanberg, Decolonizing the Viking Age, 2 vols (Stockholm, 2003).

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niche resources.8 Identity is now recognized as an “evanescent situational construct, not a solid enduring fact”9 with the range of identities available to an individual being selected, defined and redefined according to circumstance and need. While it is not within the purview of the present work to investigate Icelandic ethnogenesis, the debate surrounding the concept may enhance our understanding of the relationship between Iceland and Norway in the generations following the landnám. Two contributions to the study of early Icelandic identity, both of which draw contrasts between Icelanders and Norwegians, may usefully be applied to unpicking this relationship further.10 Bogi Th. Melsteð concluded that, by the early tenth century, a separate Icelandic identity was articulated in terms of law, political institutions and behaviour; furthermore, this identity was recognized by Icelanders and Norwegians alike.11 While Bogi Th. Melsteð’s broad source base enabled him to examine expressions of Icelandic alterity abroad, Kirsten Hastrup confined the ambit of her investigation to Iceland and the preserved law-codes of the Free State. Her study of the three levels of linguistic identity expressed in Grágás emphasized the continued affinity between Icelanders and Norwegians and revealed that while Icelanders did not consider themselves to be the same as Norwegians, they were more like their Norwegian cousins than other Scandinavians and, more broadly, were more similar to Scandinavians than other peoples. It thus appears that while appreciable differences between Icelanders and Norwegians 8

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Fredrik Barth, “Introduction”, in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries:The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Fredrik Barth (Bergen, 1969), pp. 9–38, esp. pp. 25–37. See also ­Michael Banton, Racial and Ethnic Competition (Cambridge, 1983). Stephen Shennan, ‘Introduction: Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity,’ in Archaeological Approaches to Cultural Identity, ed. Stephen Shennan (London, 1989), pp. 13–14. See also Patrick Geary’s highly influential article, ‘Ethnic Identity,’ pp. 15–26. Bogi Th. Melsteð, ‘Töldu Íslendingar,’ pp. 16–33; Bogi Th. Melsteð, Rjettur íslendinga; Hastrup, Island of Anthropology, pp. 69–102. A number of other valuable contributions have been made to the study of Icelandic (and Nordic) identity. Particularly useful are a number of articles by Gunnar Karlsson, including ‘Upphaf þjóðar á Íslandi,’ Saga og kirkja: Afmælisrit Magnúsar Más Lárussonar, eds Gunnar Karlsson, Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson and Jónas Gíslason (Reykjavik, 1988), pp. 21–32; Gunnar Karlsson, ‘When did the Icelanders become Icelanders?,’ in Líf undir leiðarstjörnu (Man in the North – main), ed. Haraldur Bessason (Akureyri, 1994), pp. 107–115; Gunnar Karlsson, ‘The Ethnicity of the Vinelanders,’ Journal of the North Atlantic, 2 (2009), 126–130. Sverrir Jakobsson has also examined the emergence of Northern identities in ‘Hvers konar þjóð voru Íslendingar á miðöldum?’, Skírnir, 173 (1999), 111–140; and Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Þegar Ísland varð hluti af Noregi,’ Skírnir, 181 (2007), 151–166. Bogi Th. Melsteð, ‘Töldu Íslendingar,’ pp. 16–33.

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may have emerged by the tenth century, the two peoples remained deeply connected to one another in the thirteenth century, each jurisdiction acknowledging the particular legal status of the other (Ólafslög, Grágás). ‘Strategies of distinction’ may well have existed, but the special relationship between the two countries was emphasized, suggesting it continued to have particular meaning and relevance for both. Medieval commentators often used ‘ethnic’ names to distinguish between what they perceived to be disparate groups. Names are inherently problematic as they are artificial constructs with meanings subject to change, redefinition and renegotiation.12 These designations are not a simple key to decoding ethnicity; they were only assigned to certain individuals and then for specific social and political purposes.13 Furthermore, we cannot interpret the use of an ethnic label as being synonymous with ethnic consciousness. Ethnic designations enjoyed validity and provided the means to make important distinctions, but their usage must be placed within the appropriate context. An example of the use of labels within a specific political context is found in Heimskringla’s description of how a peace settlement was remembered as having been negotiated between the Norwegian and Swedish kings.14 An I­ celandic skald at Óláfr Haraldsson’s court, Hjalti Skeggjason, offers to act as a diplomatic emissary for the Norwegian monarch. He is confident that, despite the bad feeling between the Swedish and Norwegian kings, “the Swedes won’t hold anything against me.”15 Hjalti’s reasoning is based on the fact that he is ekki norrœnn maðr16 and, further, that a number of Icelanders at the court of Óláfr sænski, the Swedish king, are held in good favour. As Hjalti’s ethnic designation has already been established earlier in the text, the episode does not describe his explicit self-identification as such;17 implicitly, however, his designation as an Icelander is confirmed by the declaration of his non-Norwegian status and his reference to other islanders at court. The designations ‘Norwegian,’ 12

13

14 15 16 17

Medieval chroniclers rarely used names uniformly. See the two articles by Patrick Amory in the Bibliography. On the confusion generated by Scandinavian names in particular, see Christiansen, Norsemen, p. 115; and Clare Downham, ‘Viking Ethnicities: A Historiographic Overview,’ History Compass, 10, 1 (2012), 1–12. An individual’s ethnicity was generally identified when the individual was of significant social status, fulfilled a military function, or did not ‘fit’ with native society. Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity,’ pp. 22–25. íf xxvii, pp. 86–100, 111–117. íf xxvii, p. 91. íf xxvii, p. 91. íf xxvi, p. 328 (“Hjalti hét einn íslenzkr maðr, Skeggjason”); IF XXVII, p. 86 (“Þat sumar kom útan af Íslandi Hjalti Skeggjason”).

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‘Swedish’ and ‘Icelander’ each denoted something recognizably different each from the other. Even if all those who were described by each term shared some common cultural features, the use of one designation rather than another was meaningful; these were not neutral statements. Each identity had a specific meaning in the political sphere, a phenomenon aptly described as “ethnicity in the service of politics.”18 It also placed the individual (Hjalti) at the ‘boundary,’ the point at which individuals defined themselves in comparison to others (Norwegians, Swedes) and where the ascription of ethnicity was the result of a dialectical process generated by internal and external opinions.19 The above example, taken from a thirteenth-century Icelandic text, indicates that by this time an Icelandic identity was one of a number of recognizable Scandinavian identities. It also draws a clear distinction between an Icelandic and a Norwegian identity, which suggests that this was based on more than just an ideological contrast. While Hjalti is unambiguously identified as einn íslenzkr maðr,20 it is not clear when the term ‘Icelander’ emerged or came into common use. Despite the First Grammarian describing his mid-twelfth-century work as being written for oss íslendingum21 (us Icelanders), Ari does not use the term ‘Icelanders’ to describe the island’s population in Íslendingabók. Instead he refers to the Icelanders using the collective noun landsmenn.22 On this basis we might speculate that Ari had no suitable alternative expression to use to refer to the islanders collectively and that the designation ‘Icelander’ emerged sometime between his composition and that of the First Grammarian.23 The lack of an ethnonym does not mean that Ari’s contrast between the new society founded by the colonists and that which they had left behind was diminished in any way. Not only is his reference to 18 19

20 21 22

23

Sidney W. Mintz, ‘Ethnicity and Leadership: An Afterword,’ in Ethnic Leadership in America, ed. John Higham (Baltimore, 1978), p. 198. Joane Nagel, ‘Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture,’ Social Problems, 41, 1 (1994), p. 154; Fredrik Barth, ‘Enduring and Emerging Issues in the Analysis of Ethnicity,’ in The Anthropology of Ethnicity: Beyond ‘Ethnic Groups and Boundaries’, eds Hans Vermeulen and Cora Govers (Amsterdam, 1994; repr. 1996) p. 12. íf xxvi, p. 328. fgt, p. 12. The term landsmenn is used in Íslendingabók’s account of the founding of the Alþingi and Ari’s description of Bishop Gizurr. íf i, pp. 8 (“allra landsmanna”), 9 (“en þat lǫgðu landsmenn til alþingis neyzlu”), and 22 (“átsælli af ǫllum landsmǫnnum”). Cleasby-Vigfússon, p. 371, define it as “the men of the land, the people”. Gunnar Karlsson, ‘When did the Icelanders become Icelanders?,’ pp. 107–115, has argued that the term ‘Icelander’ was generated out of the need to acquire a name that obtained a validity outside Iceland.

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foreign kings sufficient to make this distinction, his use of the term landsmenn is suggestive of the existence of a central authority (the Alþingi),24 which underlines the contrast between the settlers’ ‘old’ and ‘new’ societies. Generally speaking, it is only when Icelanders (and Norwegians) find themselves outside of their natural environment that their ethnic identity becomes an issue. Even if the volume of traffic between Iceland and Norway is difficult to estimate once the island had been fully settled, travel between the two continued for a variety of reasons.25 The foreign environment in which the traveller finds himself affords him the opportunity to express and articulate his identity, while native perceptions of the stranger in society point to a possible amplification of the differences perceived to exist between peoples through the articulation of stereotypes. Both speak to the broader relationship between Iceland and Norway. What is clear from the saga and þaettir accounts of the Icelander in Norway is that Icelandic self-perception only seems to take effect when the Icelanders encounter Norwegians or travel back to their ancestral homeland. The change of environment amplifies aspects of the Icelander’s character and behaviour, providing an opportunity for a type of self-expression that was not possible at home.26 This shift in location enabled the freeborn Icelander, who lived under a system of self-governance in a land without a king, to resolve his ambition to claim membership of an aristocratic caste. This served two functions. It allowed Icelanders to claim parity with their Norwegian counterparts and nullify the criticism of those who would suggest that they were but the descendants of fugitives, slaves and thieves. It is certainly apparent from the sources that the contrast between ‘Icelander’ and ‘Norwegian’ was an important one, but both of these designations are laden with cultural connotations which may obscure the reality. Their precise meanings were subject to change and reinterpretation over time. 24 25

26

For usage of landnámsmenn, see Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Studier, pp. 90–92. The protagonist of Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa travelled to Norway because he “wanted to become famous” while Þiðrandi Geitisson wanted to know how other people lived. Eagerness “to learn the ways of other people” motivated many a young Icelander “bored [...] sitting at home like women do” to travel overseas. Bolli Bollason in Laxdæla saga says, tellingly, “A man is understood to be ignorant if he has explored no wider [further] than Iceland.” See íf iii, p. 121; íf xi, p. 256; íf v, pp. 204–205; and íf v, p. 211 respectively. In addition, Egill (Egils saga), Hrútr (Brennu-Njáls saga) and Þorgils (Flóamanna saga) all go to Norway to claim inheritances and others, such as Hafliði (Grettis saga), to trade. Paternal claims were behind the overseas trips of Þorsteinn (Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts) and Urðarkott (Finnboga saga). As noted by Geraldine Barnes, ‘Authors, Dead and Alive, in Old Norse Fiction,’ Parergon, n.s. 8, 2 (1990), p. 21.

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This chapter seeks to explore a small but select number of contrasts drawn between Icelanders and Norwegians by thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic authors in some of the Íslendingasögur, konungasögur and þættir. Although temporally removed from their subject matter, their composers drew upon a pool of shared tradition and communal memory when fashioning their accounts about their forebears and events that took place in the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries, the timeframe of this study. While it is likely that these works retrospectively project their authors’ beliefs about the nature of the relationship between the two countries onto the political world of their ancestors, the desire to describe this relationship at all is suggestive of its longevity and continued relevance. For the purposes of the following discussion, the saga narratives and their shorter prose counterparts are viewed as largely thirteenth-century Icelandic literary constructions that function as repositories of communal and cultural memory.27 While the sagas and þættir appear to contain something of the island’s early history and traditions, it is not within the parameters of the present investigation to attempt to uncover what those ‘historical truths’ are. Rather, my intention is to examine these narratives for their construction of Icelandic and Norwegian interaction in order to gain some perspective into how the relationship between the two countries was remembered and understood. The authors of the sagas were acutely aware that the society of their ancestors differed from their own.28 Despite this historical distance, they could not simply reinvent reality in their texts; restrictions were placed on their interpretation and representation of the past. These restrictions allow these narratives to be read from a ‘practical perspective.’ This approach, drawing on the work of Hans Jacob Orning, aims to proceed “from what the actors really did do as described in the sagas […] [treating it] as evidence of what seemed plausible in the accounts of the situations.”29 Within this interpretative framework, these narratives are reflections of the society that produced them. They contain culturally significant representations of the past and of the manner in which different forms of engagement between Icelanders and Norwegians 27 Connerton, How Societies Remember, pp. 16–17. 28 Harris, ‘Saga as Historical Novel,’ p. 193. Examples of historical distance in the sagas include the references to duelling in Chapter 64 of Egils saga (íf ii, p. 205: “í þann tíma”) and Chapter 4 of Valla-Ljóts saga (íf ix, p. 246: “Þá váru af tekin hólmgǫngulǫg ǫll ok hólmgǫngur”). Chapter 10 of Gísla saga Súrssonar refers to the custom of winter sacrifices (íf vi, p. 36: “í þann tíma”) while Chapter 1 of Fóstbræðra saga opens by referring to a named king (íf vi, p. 121: “Á dǫgum ins helga Óláfs konungs”) before mentioning early Christians in Chapter 2 (íf vi, p. 124: “Í þenna tíma”). 29 Orning, Unpredictability and Presence, pp. 313, 314.

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were recalled. While the narratives may suggest commonly held perceptions of Icelanders and Norwegians, they also reveal that the reality of the Iceland– Norway relationship was infinitely more complex than the inclusion of stock characters or stereotypes initially suggests.

Norwegians in Iceland

Íslendingabók and the landnámabækur not only emphasize the common origins of Norwegian and Icelandic society; they present the islanders as noble Northmen overseas and members of the wider Norse cultural community. On the other hand, although aware of the affinities between Icelanders and Norwegians, the authors of the Íslendingasögur (and samtiðarsögur) were unafraid to articulate the perceived differences between the two peoples. These texts, however, pose their own set of challenges, not least of which is the fundamental problem of attempting to identify who is Norwegian and who is not.30 Similar names and naming practices rendered identification according to personal name virtually impossible. Problems of identification may be resolved in part by examining the criteria used by external authors to denote alterity. Outside of Scandinavia, medieval commentators identified the region’s inhabitants according to religion, geographical origin, otherness and function.31 Both ‘geographical origin’ and ‘function’ may also usefully be applied to the identification of Norwegian characters within the Íslendingasögur. Geographical Origin32 Although the primary concern of the landnámabækur is land-ownership and not the ascription of ethnicity, these texts do reveal that many of the colonists were of Norwegian stock or departed from a location within present-day Norway. Íslendingabók, by contrast, is at pains to stress that the island’s key settlers – at least those designated as being such by Ari or his textual advisers – were emphatically norrænn. As discussed in Chapter 2, the accounts of the 30

Chris Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact, Conflict, and Coexistence: Norwegians in ThirteenthCentury Iceland,’ in Scandinavia and Europe, eds Adams and Holman, p. 324. 31 Christiansen, Norsemen, pp. 116–117. 32 For a discussion of geographical terms see Stefán Einarsson, ‘Terms of Direction in Old Icelandic,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 43, 3 (1944), 265–285; Einar Haugen, ‘The Semantics of Icelandic Orientation,’ Word, 13 (1957), 447–459; Hastrup, Culture and History, pp. 51–57; Tatjana N. Jackson, ‘On the Old Norse System of Spatial Orientation,’ Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 25 (1998), 72–82.

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landnám in Iceland’s earliest national histories emphasized this norœnn identity over all others, establishing an historical continuum between Iceland and Norway and, by virtue of that identity’s association with the island’s first bishops, between Iceland’s pre- and post-conversion history. Ari’s conceptualization of norrænn was based on blood: a man such as Helgi enn magri, who had been born and raised in Ireland and fostered in the Hebrides, was still designated “nórœnn” by virtue of his Norwegian paternity.33 Residency, then, did not dictate an individual’s norrænn status in every instance. For Helgi to be designated norrænn on the basis of his Norwegian father, Eyvindr Bjarnarson, alone – his mother was Rafarta, the daughter of the Irish king Cerball mac Dúnlainge34 – implies that this identity clearly assumed a significance and validity outside of Norway.35 This suggests that norrænn was one of a number of situational or segmentary identities that an individual could possess and was a label assigned to a person for specific social and political intentions.36 At least, this appears to have been the case when Ari was composing his libellus Islandorum in the early twelfth century. In the respective versions of Landnámabók by Sturla and Haukr, however, Helgi is not described as norrænn, suggesting that a shift in the validity and/or potency of this identity had taken place between the early twelfth and late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.37 Ari’s geographical system of classification is echoed in the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur. The use of cardinal terms to construct a general system of classification within which individuals could be identified suggests an awareness of different geographical loci and that the differences between these spaces were important, even if they were subject to change and reinterpretation. The most commonly employed term to denote an outsider in the Íslendingasögur is austmaðr (pl. austmenn), which literally means ‘east man’ or ‘man from the east.’ This term, as we have seen, was used by Ari to describe Úlfljótr. The sagas tend to associate this term with a specific ethnicity (Norwegian). It is plausible, however, that the sagas may not have designated all Norwegians as austmenn, suggesting that a proportion of Norwegians in these narratives are not explicitly classified as such. In some instances, however, a character may be identified as being Norwegian when contextualized within the narrative or read in accordance with ‘function.’ 33 34 35

36 37

íf i, p. 6. íf i, pp. 248, 249; see also the genealogies in íf i, XVIIa and XVIIb Ætt Helga magra. íf vi, p. 28. A similar usage of norrænn occurs in Gísla saga in which Vésteinn’s trading partner, Sigurðr, is describe as being “norrœnn at ætt” (lit. Norwegian of family) even though he was “þá á Englandi vestr” (then out west in England). Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity,’ pp. 22–25. íf i, pp. 248 (S217), 250, 252 (S218); 249, 251, 253 (H184).

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Function Chris Callow reads occurrences of the terms austmaðr and austmenn in conjunction with roles that Norwegians in Iceland were likely to fill and interprets these terms broadly as denoting merchants. Other terms connected to an economic status and mobility based on or derived from the sea, such as kaupmaðr (trader) and stýrimaðr (ship’s captain), also tend to denote an outsider, whether Norwegian or not.38 Firstly, however, it would be incorrect to assume that all traders were Norwegian. A number of sagas refer to Icelandic merchants: Grettis saga, for instance, refers to an Icelandic merchant and owner of a trading vessel called Hafliði,39 while Heimskringla describes another Icelander, Þórarinn Nefjólfsson, as a trader who had spent extended periods abroad.40 Secondly, not all sagas link austmenn specifically with economic activity. Egils saga, for example, associates the term with another specific function, that of a fighter or bowman. The identification of an austmaðr as a skilled combatant goes against Callow’s broad interpretation of the term as merchant, but it does suggest the association of a particular ethnicity with a specific profession.41 Again, these were roles that generally tended to be filled by Norwegians. Despite the high degree of contact between Iceland and Norway since the landnám, there is no single term used consistently in the sagas to indicate that an individual was Norwegian. Culturally and linguistically alike, the difference between Norwegians and the landnámsmenn was, initially, one of residence and place.42 On this basis, the use of a geographical term was sufficient to designate an individual’s outsider status. The use of a geographical classifier together with a profession or skill suggests that austmaðr was a segmentary identity – a label that was applied to an outsider who fulfilled a specific social or political function.43 If Norwegians in Iceland assume a vague or shadowy presence in the Íslendingasögur, these narratives, which place the nationality of their protagonists to the fore, show no such difficulty in their identifications of Icelanders in Norway. A system of simple identification exists. These individuals loudly and proudly declare themselves to be ‘Icelanders’ to Norwegians and the king.44 Their ethnic designation is conscious, emphatic and absolute. 38 Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact,’ p. 324. 39 íf vii, p. 48. 40 íf xxvi, p. 329; íf xxvii, p. 125. 41 Callow, ‘Narrative, Conflict’, p. 324. 42 Christiansen, Norsemen, p. 125. 43 Geary, ‘Ethnic Identity,’ pp. 22–25. 44 Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar describes interaction between its protagonist and a number of foreign kings. The text is notable for its lack of Icelandic designations, preferring to use terms such as innlenzkir and útlenzkir (ÍF II, p. 198).

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Types of Norwegian

By isolating descriptions of Icelandic–Norwegian interaction from the larger narrative frameworks of the Íslendingasögur in which they appear, we can discern general ‘types’ of behaviour and characterization. These episodes must, however, be read in light of the saga within which they occur, the saga corpus as a whole and the period in which they were committed to writing. In his examination of Norwegian characters occurring within the Íslendingasögur and the samtiðarsögur, Callow concluded that, despite the difficulties surrounding the identification of Norwegian characters within the native Icelandic narratives, the majority of Norwegian characters fell into one of two categories: the inconsequential or incidental Norwegian and the social incompetent.45 Many of the characters from both groups are very thinly sketched and amount to little more than stereotypes or caricatures, but even these crudely drawn individuals can reveal much about the early Icelandic perception of Norwegians.46 Just as a sense of Icelandic-ness was amplified abroad, it is also reasonable to think that any sense of Norwegian-ness was exaggerated in the Icelandicbased episodes within the Íslendingasögur. The degree to which these were commonly held perceptions and reflective of attitudes on both sides is unclear. Saga authors were susceptible to the influence of societal attitudes on their works and, of course, their works in turn may have influenced and informed these attitudes. The first of Callow’s categories, the inconsequential Norwegian, is straightforward. Many saga narratives introduce a Norwegian character briefly, who then exits the tale almost immediately without having contributed anything of importance to the plot.47 Although their presence in the narrative record is brief, the incorporation of these individuals represents a conscious choice on the part of the saga author to include a Norwegian as opposed to an Irish, Hebridean or Swedish character in his account. A slight variation on the inconsequential Norwegian are those characters who do not participate directly in the main narrative but serve a specific purpose, for example, to bring an Icelander abroad – such as Hallvarðr in Brennu-Njáls saga or Ǫrn in Laxdæla saga – or to make up the collateral damage in domestic skirmishes.48 Such inclusions, however brief, are plot driven. The inconsequential Norwegian appears to be a stock character; his inclusion is suggestive of the presence of Norwegians in 45 46 47 48

Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact’, pp. 325, 326. Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact,’ p. 323. íf xi, p. 179. Chapter 15 of Droplaugarsona saga gives an example of the inconsequential Norwegian: “Helga gaf Þorkatli skipit hálft, en hálft seldi hon Austmǫnnum.” íf xii, p. 74; íf v, pp. 50–54, 60.

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Iceland and points to the saga audience’s expectation that these individuals would be included in narratives about their families and home districts. The second category, that of the social incompetent – the Norwegian who “gets things wrong”49 − reveals more about Icelandic perceptions of Norwegians and, by extension, the type of relationship that existed between the two peoples. Perhaps in reaction to the Norwegian perception of Icelandic society as founded by criminals and slaves, Norwegians are frequently described as coming off worse in their exchanges with the islanders. Their actions result in unnecessary killings (Bjarnar saga Hitdælakappa), or start blood-feuds (Hænsa-­ Þóris saga); they steal from the natives (Hrómundar þáttr halta); behave in a belligerent fashion due to their unfamiliarity with native customs (Vatnsdæla saga); they fail to honour agreed transactions (Gísla saga) or to take responsibility for their actions (Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts). Objects from Norway, meanwhile, often have catastrophic consequences for the islanders, bringing death, violence and disagreement to their shores (Laxdæla saga, Þórðar saga hreðu). While Callow argues that the characterization of austmenn in the Íslendingasögur is simplistic relative to their depiction in the samtiðarsögur, his broad categorization of Norwegians is based on their essentially negative portrayal in these narratives.50 This depiction is unsurprising for “every period sees barbarians in its own light; every generation recreates them for its own purposes.”51 Norwegians in Iceland acted as a foil for the islanders’ courage and resilience, heroic actions and adherence to an honour code. For early Icelandic authors, character flaws and deficiencies ensured the marginalization of an individual more effectively than any physical characteristic or phenotype. Although visual markers, corporeal features could successfully be overcome. Icelanders and their ancestors may have had swarthy characteristics or ‘black eyes’, but neither proved an impediment or obstruction to an individual’s acceptance, ambitions or status.52 49 Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact,’ p. 326. 50 Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact,’ pp. 323–331. 51 James, Europe’s Barbarians, p. 256. 52 Dark, physical characteristics are frequently mentioned. íf i, p. 150: Geirmundr heljarskinn and his brother, Hámundr, are described as “svartir mjǫk.” íf ii, pp. 5, 80, describes the dark features of Grímr Kveldúlfsson (“svartr maðr ok ljótr”) and Egill Skallagrímsson (“hann myndi verða mjǫk ljótr”). Alterity is also suggested by the terms svartr (black) and ljótr (ugly). Over time, this physical constituent was defused with both terms becoming proper names. Ljótr occurs as a personal name in íf ix, pp. 233–260, and íf xii, p. 287, while seven men bear svartr as a personal name in Sturlunga saga. For a discussion of svartr, ljótr and the dichotomy between black and white, see Jenny Jochens, ‘Race and Ethnicity in the Old Norse World,’ Viator, 30 (1999), 79–103. For ‘black Icelandic eyes’ see Sighvatr Þórðarson’s Austrfaravísur (Eastern Travel Verses) in cpb ii, p. 130.

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Many austmenn are described in the Íslendingasögur as being dour, taciturn, overbearing, disagreeable and downright difficult to deal with.53 Their conduct is presaged by the description of their temperaments, which in turn dictate their behaviour and draw attention to their weak character. There are exceptions: Þórir and Þorgrímr, who lodge with Egill Kolsson, are described as being “much liked, wealthy, good at fighting and valiant.”54 But being popular was insufficient in itself: even well-regarded Norwegians, such as Ǫrn in Hænsa-­Þóris saga, a man described as being both popular and honourable,55 were not immune from being drawn into squabbles with the local goði.56 It seems that the odds were stacked against the austmaðr in Iceland, but the negative ­classification of Norwegians in the Íslendingasögur glosses over the more complex and nuanced levels of interaction between Norwegians and Icelanders in Iceland. While it is tempting to dismiss some of the more crudely drawn austmenn as a literary motif,57 the practicalities of mercantile activity and the relationship between the trader and his clientele were very real concerns for Icelanders and Norwegians alike. Iceland, as discussed in the preceding chapter, relied on Norwegian imports: contact between Icelanders and Norwegian merchants was not only unavoidable, it was desirable and encouraged. The descriptions of foreign merchants conducting their business in Iceland are likely rooted in reality and are possibly suggestive of more popular experience as opposed to the specific views of the saga man. A number of the Íslendingasögur describe the problems encountered by Norwegian merchants in their dealings with the Icelanders. These episodes are suggestive of a particular difficulty encountered by some merchants in Iceland: their lack of familiarity with native customs and practices. The thirteenth-century Norwegian Konungs skuggsjá (The King’s Mirror) gives sage advice to merchants on the manner in which they should conduct themselves. One section specifically focuses on “the activities and habits of a merchant” and amounts to something resembling a guide to good business 53 54 55 56

57

Examples include íf viii, p. 306 (Sleitu-Helgi and Jǫrundr); íf viii, pp. 47–49 (Hrafn); íf v, pp. 77–83 (Geirmundr); and íf xi, pp. 28–30 (Hrafn). íf xii, p. 147. íf iii, p. 8: “vinsæll maðr ok inn bezti kaupdrengr.” Ǫrn is drawn into a conflict with Tungu-Oddr over the latter’s pricing of his stock which results in the Norwegian being burned with Blund-Ketill. For further see íf iii, pp. 7–11, 21–23. Callow, ‘Narrative, Contact’, p. 328, observes that many descriptions of Norwegians are “simplistic or symbolic”.

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practices.58 In essence, this section is replete with advice that Norwegian merchants should heed on their travels, advice that, as we shall see, was observed with varying degrees of regard in Iceland. First and foremost, a merchant should “act discreetly wherever he happens to be,” as his profession will invariably bring him into contact with unknown peoples.59 On arrival, he should make it his business to obtain the goodwill and friendship of the king “or other leader who is in authority there.”60 A merchant should always associate with the best men, think before he speaks and never speak in anger, “for [while] your tongue may honour you, your tongue may judge you.”61 When he finds himself in a position to sell his wares he should, at all times, be siðsaman ok léttlátan (decent and cheerful), an approach which will ensure he is “­ popular with all the good men.”62 His prices should be fair and his goods not over-priced. The presence of witnesses is also recommended when agreeing sales, while any defects in the wares should be made known to the intended buyer prior to making a sale.63 In cases where the merchant is unfamiliar with his environment, he should observe how the beztir kaupmenn (best merchants) do their business.64 Furthermore, knowledge of the local laws and, in particular, an indepth knowledge of the Bjarkey code, were deemed essential components of the merchant’s toolkit.65 While adhering to this good advice could facilitate a Norwegian merchant’s trading venture in Iceland, the success of his enterprise was ultimately determined by his interaction with the local chieftain. The normal shipping season between Iceland and Norway was from April to October. Many merchants overwintered on the island and it was usual for the local goði to host the traders for their stay.66 The goðar identified themselves with the stýrimaðr (ship’s captain), many of whom were affiliated with the Norwegian aristocracy and royal household.67 No wonder, then, that the local Icelandic chieftain was 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

Konungs skuggsjá, pp. 5–13; The King’s Mirror (Speculum Regale – Konungs Skuggsjá), trans. Laurence Marcellus Larson (New York, 1917), pp. 79–86. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 5. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 7. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 7. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 5. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 6. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 5. Konungs skuggsjá, p. 6. íf xiv, p. 170. As merchants decided where to put ashore, they could determine which goði they dealt with. Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Strangers in Icelandic Society 1100–1400,’ Viking and Medieval Scandinavia, 3 (2007), p. 144.

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anxious to ingratiate himself with these men and enhance his status as a result. Some chieftains, such as Skúli in Bjarnar saga Hítdælakappa, cultivated firm friendships with their guests. Of particular importance is the series of customary rights the goðar enjoyed over Norwegian merchants in Iceland. They controlled access to the trader’s ship and his goods. Until such time as the goði had selected the goods he desired from the merchant’s stock, the other farmers would not trade with the ship.68 The right to have first choice of the available goods was a considerable privilege in a society in which gift-giving was highly prized.69 Furthermore, it was not the merchant who set the prices on his wares, it was the local chieftain.70 The fact that an Icelander had the right to set the price on a Norwegian merchant’s goods provided an immediate source of potential conflict between Icelanders and Norwegians in Iceland.71 This particular source of tension was, as we shall see, especially potent and disagreements over price-setting were all too real. All of the chieftains’ privileges in their relations with Norwegian merchants could be seen as the expression of Icelandic interests over Norwegian ones. A number of the accounts of interaction between Icelandic goðar and Norwegian merchants in the Íslendingasögur are suggestive of the local expression of a national power struggle. Vápnfirðinga saga’s account of Hrafn’s refusal to sell his wares on credit to the local chieftain, a customary practice, incurred the wrath of the local goði.72 Insult was then added to injury when the Norwegian declined Brodd-Helgi’s offer of lodgings, instead opting to stay with Geitir, the goði’s rival. We might interpret Hrafn’s actions as a direct response to what he perceives to be the actions of a self-interested Icelander (Brodd-Helgi). 68 69

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íf xiv, p. 170. See, for example, Gurevich, ‘Wealth and Gift-Bestowal,’ pp. 126–138; Miller, ‘Gift, Sale,’ pp. 18–50; Helgi Þorláksson, ‘Snorri Stuluson og Oddaverjar,’ in Snorri: Átta alda minning, eds Gunnar Karlsson and Helgi Þorláksson (Reykjavik, 1979), pp. 53–55; Helgi Þorláksson, ‘Social Ideals and the Concept of Profit in Thirteenth-Century Iceland,’ in From Sagas to Society, ed. Gísli Pálsson, pp. 231–245; and Byock, Medieval Iceland, p. 88. Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu describes how, when Þorsteinn learned that a ship had arrived in his district, he made his way down to the vessel as it was customary for him to set the prices (íf iii, p. 52). Gunnars saga keldugnúpsfífls illustrates this problem in its account of the friction between Bárðr and Þorgrímr over the latter’s prices. Believing Þorgrímr’s valuation of his goods was too low, Bárðr’s reaction unimpressed Þorgrímr who “forbade everyone from dealing with the ship or buying [from it]”: íf xiv, p. 351. Goods were frequently purchased on credit: see, e.g., íf x, p. 5, and íf xi, pp. 29–30. Buying on credit meant that merchants often had to wait for some time before they were paid for their wares.

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The Norwegian’s inflammatory intervention in domestic Icelandic politics seals his fate. More than a little offended by Hrafn’s decisions and determined to obtain some redress – financial, if nothing else – Brodd-Helgi later conspires with his rival to claim possession of Hrafn’s goods and chattels following his slaying.73 Hrafn serves two functions within the context of the Iceland–Norway relationship: he highlights unwelcome Norwegian involvement in island politics and illuminates some of the less desirable characteristics of the Icelanders. Brodd-Helgi and Geitir are not the only Icelanders who attempt to assert themselves at the expense of Norwegians. Other islanders were not averse to capitalizing on the rather precarious position of Norwegians in Iceland, using or manipulating the austmenn in a variety of ways to achieve their own ends. Some, such as Vémundr and Þorbergr in Reykdæla saga og Víga-Skútu, for instance, attempt to involve Norwegians in their own personal grievances with Steingrímr and Glúmr.74 This highlights the precarious position of some Norwegians in Iceland: austmenn could be drawn into native squabbles purely through their association with one of the parties involved. This association was particularly desirable if the Norwegian had knowledge, skills or possessions that could be of benefit to his new community. A number of austmenn display fighting prowess and skill at arms; this brand of foreign intrepidness appears to have been a particularly prized commodity and one that made a Norwegian especially useful to his new milieu.75 Other Icelanders, such as Þórðr in Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa, take advantage of the arrival of some merchants from Norway to spread the false news of the demise of his rival, Bjǫrn, so that he can marry Oddný.76 The news-disseminating function of the merchant was thus re-fashioned by Þórðr to serve his own purpose. Examples such as these of the Icelanders’ making use of the presence or skills of austmenn for their own purposes suggests that the relationship between the islanders and Norwegians in Iceland was remembered as being much more complex and multi-faceted. Far from being a relationship in which Iceland was the submissive partner, the narratives suggest that many islanders asserted themselves at the expense of Norwegians. 73

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Without an heir in Iceland, it is only the intervention of another Icelander and Hrafn’s trading partner Þorleifr inn kristni (the Christian) that ensured the dead Norwegian’s possessions were transmitted to his rightful heirs. íf xi, pp. 28–32. íf x, pp. 172–175, 204–211. íf ix, pp. 63–66, describes an episode in Víga-Glúms saga in which two austmenn support Vigfúss on his attack on Bárðr. Realizing his intentions too late, the austmenn enter the fray on behalf of Vigfúss only to later be outlawed for their part in Bárðr’s death. íf iii, pp. 122–123.

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Acceptance into Icelandic Society Whether an austmaðr was a merchant, a sailor, a skilled bowman or a more generic Norwegian, he operated on the margins of Icelandic society. In light of the preceding discussion one must wonder whether Icelandic society was simply too insular or unwilling to allow for the integration of outsider elements. Clearly the islanders’ perceptions of Norwegians were strongly-held, but this did not preclude their acceptance of all of these individuals into their society. The Íslendingasögur reveal that in some instances an austmaðr could successfully negotiate the transition from stranger to community member. Drawing on the work of Georg Simmel, Sverrir Jakobsson concluded that although a stranger was marginalized by virtue of his unfamiliarity to and with native society, if he was amiable, hospitable and conducted himself appropriately in both business and battle, he stood a reasonable chance of being accepted into Icelandic society.77 A good example is found in the opening chapters of Víga-Glúms saga, which explore the dangers of marginality on the basis of unfamiliarity and ethnicity alone. The saga demonstrates that such prejudices may not only be incorrect, they may also be successfully overcome. The narrative, which describes events that ostensibly took place in the early tenth century, recounts how, the long-standing preconceptions of the local goði, Ingjaldr, are challenged by a Norwegian merchant, Hreiðarr.78 Although his grandfather had married an Irish princess, Ingjaldr is described as being ill-disposed to outsiders and to merchants in particular.79 Persuaded by his son, Eyjólfr, to host Hreiðarr for the duration of his stay, Ingjaldr reluctantly accedes to his son’s request, even though he claims “he had never had a foreigner [útlendan mann] stay with him.”80 The expression útlendan mann suggests that Ingjaldr’s prejudices went beyond the merchant class and extended to all foreigners. He does not describe the trader as an austmaðr, suggesting he is xenophobic in a broad sense and that his prejudices are not specifically directed against Norwegians. Hreiðarr’s respect for his Icelandic host, appropriate conduct in all matters and

77 78 79

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Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Strangers in Icelandic Society,’ p. 154. íf ix, pp. 3–5. íf ix, pp. 3–4. Ingjaldr was “sonr Helga ins magra.” Ingjaldr’s attitude may be connected to the saga’s description of him as einlyndr (strange, stubborn), fálátr (cold), ódæll (difficult) and fastœkr (headstrong, stubborn). For these definitions and contexts, see CleasbyVigfússon, pp. 121, 146, 659, and 145. íf ix, p. 4.

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generosity all dispel Ingjaldr’s bad opinion of strangers to such an extent that he is happy for Eyjólfr to travel to Norway with Hreiðarr the following spring.81 The idea that good and honourable conduct could facilitate the acceptance of a stranger into a new community also applied to Icelanders in Norway. A neat symmetry exists between Hreiðarr’s experience in Iceland and Eyjólfr’s experience in Norway. Where Hreiðarr encountered and overcame the prejudices of Eyjólfr’s father, Eyjólfr finds himself in a position where he has to prove his worth to Hreiðarr’s brother, Ívarr. According to the saga, Ívarr dislikes Icelanders intensely, and considers them to be verstu þjóðar (the worst of peoples).82 While no reason for this animosity is immediately apparent, it later transpires that Ívarr perceives the Icelanders as imposing obligations on his brother as Hreiðarr’s commercial enterprises regularly remove him from his Norwegian kin for extended periods of time.83 Just as Hreiðarr rewarded Ingjaldr’s hospitality in Iceland through respect, tact and generosity, actions which ensured a firm friendship between the two men and a change in Ingjaldr’s feelings towards foreigners, Eyjólfr proved himself to Ívarr in an area the latter valued: courageous combat. Good behaviour was not the only means by which a stranger could gain acceptance: he could put down roots and forge connections within his new community. The most obvious way to amend one’s status as stranger was to acquire land or marry into the native population.84 Although this ostensibly suggested roots were being put down in a new environment, not all such roots resulted in the green shoots of goodwill and acceptance. Some Norwegians established themselves in Iceland for the wrong reasons: Víglundar saga, for instance, describes how Hákon, a headstrong Norwegian who had travelled to Iceland to kill Þorgrímr prúði, fails to do so. He decides “at festast hér á Íslandi” (to remain here in Iceland) as he could not now return to Norway.85 Another Norwegian who attempted to settle in Iceland was Geirmundr, who married Þuríðr, the daughter of Óláfr feilan Þorsteinsson. Eventually he tired of married life and opted to return to Norway, abandoning his wife and child in Iceland. His refusal to support them financially prompted Þuríðr to steal his prized sword, 81 82 83 84 85

íf ix, p. 5. íf ix, pp. 6–7, 8. íf ix, p. 7. Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Strangers in Icelandic Society,’ p. 154. íf xiv, pp. 91–92. Chapter 15 of Víglundar saga describes how Hákon’s problems in Iceland are compounded by his unhappy marriage to Ketilríðr, who had been offered to the Norwegian for his wife or mistress by her brothers, Jökull and Einarr.

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the weapon later used to slay Kjartan Óláfsson.86 The failure of Hákon and Geirmundr to integrate in a similar fashion to Hreiðarr and Eyjólfr was attributed to character. Despite their settlements and marriages, ultimately it was their temperaments that precluded their transition from stranger to community member.

Icelanders in Norway

The Norwegian king was a figure that was very much alive in the memory and tradition of the medieval Icelanders and was also, as we have seen, the focus of early history writing as well as providing the chronological spine around which these accounts were constructed.87 It appears outwardly paradoxical that a politically acephalous island society should organize its history-writing enterprises and chronological framework around the lives of foreign kings, yet the Norwegian kings are a consistent feature in every stage of medieval Icelandic history-writing. The later treatment of these kings in the Íslendingasögur is suggestive of a continued and, indeed, increased level of interest on the part of their composers and audience in the Norwegian kings’ personae, ambitions, relationship and interactions with the island and its inhabitants. A number of the Íslendingasögur, including Egils saga, incorporate two layers of temporality, each containing memories of Norway and the Norwegian kings. This is especially the case of those composed in the northwest and western parts of the country. The first layer can be detected in their elaborate Norwegian-based prologues, which account for the family’s pre-migration history and reason for departing Norway. The second is anchored in the period after the action has shifted to Iceland and concerns the continuing relationship between the descendants of the landnámsmenn and the Norwegian king. Collectively these narratives indicate that the connection between the king and the islanders remained an important concern. These authors’ descriptions of the kings straddle the desire to perpetuate the myth of settlement and ofríki Haralds on the one hand, and an attempt to document the realities of royal power, service, status and mutually beneficial political relations within the context of the wider relationship between Norway and Iceland. The following discussion of these motifs is by no means exhaustive, but instead focuses on a number of recurrent threads spun out by the Íslendingasögur in their descriptions of Icelanders and the Norwegian king. 86 87

íf v, pp. 77–83. For Kjartan’s death, see íf v, pp. 152–154. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, ‘The Norse Community,’ pp. 60–62.

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Deliberate narrative positioning afforded saga composers an opportunity to safely articulate impressions of kingship. If Icelandic perceptions of the Norwegian kings were based solely on Egils saga, then one might be forgiven for believing that the islanders had an entirely negative attitude to and memory of Norwegian kingship. This narrative, composed c.1230 but describing events purported to have taken place between c.850–1000, expresses thinly veiled hostility towards monarchical power and provides the most comprehensive account of ofríki Haralds found in any saga. It documents a series of antagonistic and problematic relationships between the descendants of Kveld-Úlfr and authority figures, each of whom are notable for their political ambivalence towards the Norwegian king. More subtle aspersions are cast on the character of the Norwegian ruler through unfavourable comparison with the good judgement, wisdom and generosity of the English king, Æthelstan.88 Throughout the text, the importance of service to a king is stressed. Most of the leading men in the saga seek honour in the service of foreign kings. When Egill offers himself to serve King Hákon, the monarch opts not to accept him into his retinue.89 Even the saga’s depiction of the treacherous Haraldr hárfagri is insufficient to deter men from desiring to serve him and obtain his friendship, although Eiríkr emerges in a more positive fashion when he reveals himself to be a merciful lord. Icelandic identity is played out in the Norwegian court where self-assertion is articulated in the form of ambiguous relations with authority figures. While Egill is intolerant of the Norwegian king’s behaviour towards him and his family, his own conduct in Iceland also raises questions, particularly the manner in which he settles a dispute for his son in his old age by drawing on an historical right, which indicates that autocracy is alive and well in Iceland. Different attitudes towards kingship are expressed in other sagas. Vatnsdæla saga, believed to have been written at the end of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, expresses an interest in events that took place at a ­similar time to those recounted in Egils saga. Both narratives contain Norwegian prologues, as well as an account of the landnám of their protagonists’ ancestors. Vatnsdæla saga, however, provides an alternative perception of kingship and fealty to a distant lord and contains one of the most positive descriptions of Haraldr hárfagri found in the Íslendingasögur: he appears as a powerful and successful king, possessing confidence in his own abilities and the loyalty of his retainers. The narrative generates a positive association with the Norwegian king: a loyal retainer in Norway, Ingimundr becomes a landed-man in Iceland, 88 89

íf ii, pp. 127–148. íf ii, pp. 197–199.

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maintaining his relationship with Haraldr from a distance.90 Ingimundr rules his domain in a fair and benevolent fashion; he is the present lord who is loyal to a distant king.91 In many respects, his good fortune in Iceland is predicated on his friendship with the Norwegian monarch. This belief that good relations with the king are rewarded by good luck and fortune is perpetuated by many of the Íslendingasögur.92 Kormáks saga, believed to have been composed in the early thirteenth century, also indicates bonds of friendship existed between Ǫgmundr, the protagonist’s father, and Haraldr hárfagri.93 Most frequently, however, conflicting attitudes are expressed towards the Norwegian kings. The late thirteenth-century narrative, Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, exhibits political ambivalence towards the Norwegian king. Like Egils saga, the main points of this life of Gunnlaugr lie outside of Iceland. In this case, the protagonist’s uneasy relationship with the Norwegian Earl Eiríkr is set against the easier, more amicable relationships he enjoys with King Æthelred of England and King Óláfr sænski. Laxdæla saga reveals its favourable association with kings and kingship through its author’s emphasis on the royal antecedents and courtly connections of his protagonists. A concern with status is expressed throughout which, as we shall see, even extends to inanimate objects. The text also expresses Icelandic unease and uncertainty towards the Norwegian king in its treatment of Óláfr Tryggvason. The islanders had a clear memory of the expansionist ambitions of Norway’s two evangelizing kings; and the issue of power, particularly that wielded by the Norwegian king over Icelanders in his realm, was a concern for the saga composers. Laxdæla saga describes how Óláfr Tryggvason obtained control over the leader of the Icelanders then in Norway, Kjartan Óláfsson, by gift-­giving and a show of mercy. Gift-giving was, as we have seen, a highly regulated institution; vingjafir imposed a reciprocal relationship on the receiver and the giver. The unpredictability of the Norwegian king’s behaviour, on this occasion his calculated moderation, were more nuanced ways of demonstrating his control over the Icelanders. Recognizing Kjartan as a potentially useful tool in his desire to convert those Icelanders in Norway, he spares his life even though the impetuous young Icelander had made threats against him.94 Through a show of mercy, the Norwegian king kept the leader of the Icelanders 90 91 92 93 94

íf viii, pp. 38–64; íf i, p. 219; Ármann Jakobsson. ‘Royal Pretenders,’ pp. 54–59. Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Royal Pretenders,’ p. 58. Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Our Norwegian Friend: The Role of Kings in the Family Sagas,’ Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 117 (2002), p. 157. íf viii, pp. 203–204. íf v, pp. 116–123.

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in Norway in his direct gaze. The religious manifesto pursued by Óláfr Tryggvason served to remind Kjartan of the king’s power over the Icelanders when he was refused permission to travel home. In each of the narratives mentioned, the placement of Icelanders outside of their natural environment enables the articulation of identity. Abroad, they express varying degrees of ambivalence towards the Norwegian king and it is in this context that their identity is maintained. Their Icelandic-ness is based on an attitudinal and perhaps ideological contrast as opposed to an ethnic one. There is the sense also that while friendships may prevail once the Icelanders return home, this is quite a different type of relationship to that between a vassal and his lord. The exception to this rule is Vatnsdæla saga, which suggests that a distant but benevolent lord is one who has little impact on the banalities of island life. This suggests a more complex relationship between the two countries. Although the narrative claims to describe tenth-century Iceland, its conception of the past was probably familiar to a late thirteenth-century Icelandic audience who were subjects of the Norwegian king and overseen in his name by local magnates.95 This text suggests a degree of absorption into the wider Norwegian realm, one that took place on Icelandic terms and did not affect the political integrity of the island. Descriptions of the Icelander abroad in Norway give ample opportunity for contrasts to be drawn between Icelanders and Norwegians.96 When the islanders are placed within the king’s retinue, this allows the saga narratives to illuminate some of the less desirable qualities a king might possess. An episode in Hallfreðar saga, for example, suggests that the judgement of the Norwegian king is found lacking when compared to the mores espoused by one of his Icelandic retainers. In this particular instance, Hallfreðr, a troublesome poet with an Odinic temperament, reveals that he, a mere Icelander, possesses better judgement than the Norwegian monarch.97 Dispatched by the king to Oppland to “kill or blind” Þorleifr inn spaki who has failed to accept baptism, Hallfreðr takes one of Þorleifr’s eyes but spares his life.98 Hallfreðr’s good judgement and moderation in his dealings with Þorleifr and Kálfr, the man

95 96 97 98

Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Royal Pretenders,’ p. 58. Anthony J. Gilbert, ‘The Icelander Abroad: The Concept of Social and National Identity in some Icelandic þættir,’ Necrophilologus, 75, 3 (1991), 408–424. Margaret Clunies Ross discusses the personalities of the protagonists of the skald sagas in ‘The Skald Sagas,’ pp. 25–49. íf viii, pp. 155–167.

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who wronged him, absolves him from his earlier indiscretions and reconciles him with his patron, the king.99 Other Icelanders are troublesome for the Norwegian king in a host of different ways. Halldórr Snorrason, the son of Snorri goði, displays a remarkable lack of respect for the king he serves, Haraldr harðráði.100 The relationship between the monarch and his retainer is tempestuous. While we might interpret the episodes in which Halldórr locks horns with the king as amounting to a blatant disregard for Norwegian authority, the narrative places each of his demands within a specific context which essentially justifies his grievances. Halldórr is often cast in the role of hostile opponent to the king. He is not afraid to disagree openly with the monarch and does so on several occasions. Often, such as in the account of the two men’s quarrel over how best to steer a boat past a rock, Halldórr’s judgement proves the sounder.101 Halldórr personifies an ambivalent attitude towards royal authority. He was not afraid to aggressively pursue what he believed to be rightfully his, even if it meant threatening the king’s person. When Haraldr purchased a boat from Halldórr and short-changes him on the price, the Icelander said nothing and bided his time only to burst in on the king and his queen before he left for Iceland. Determined not to let Haraldr, a king who had a reputation for being less than generous, defer matters until the following morning, Halldórr insisted on having the queen’s gold arm-ring there and then to settle the king’s account. The queen, realizing the potential threat to the king’s person, persuades Haraldr to acquiesce with the Icelander’s demands.102 Other demands made by Halldórr, for payment in pure silver and a ship to captain, are also met by Haraldr. The last of Halldórr’s desires is worth exploring, for the episode is suggestive of a recurring literary motif that was based on a very real concern with 99

Expressions of good judgement can take different forms. Examples include íf v, pp. 251–260, in which Halldórr Snorrason offers Einar þambarskelfi his head after slaying Kali, and íf xxvi, pp. 332–333, which describes how Kjartan Óláfsson appealed to Óláfr Tryggvason not to go back on his word to pardon those who had angered him if they accepted baptism. Ísleifs þáttr byskups recounts how Brandr gave away a gift given to him by Óláfr Haraldsson to an Icelandic priest, Ísleifr. Brandr’s decision to dispose of the king’s gift was not because he undervalued the gift or the giver, but because he esteemed the gift so highly he thought it appropriate for the man who became Iceland’s first bishop (íf xvi, pp. 335–338). Þorsteins þáttr Austfirðings is suggestive of a particular motif found in the ‘king in disguise’ type tales, in which a benevolent Icelander aids an individual who later turns out to be the Norwegian king (íf xi, pp. 329–332). 100 íf v, pp. 251–260, 265–277. 101 íf v, p. 270. 102 íf v, pp. 273–275.

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honourable origins and status. The account also reveals that Halldórr’s alterity was defined in territorial terms. In order for Halldórr to captain a ship, Haraldr must oust one of his Norwegian captains from his position. When the dismissed seaman sought redress from the king, Haraldr attempted to defuse the situation by stating that Halldórr was of similar status and that it was not so long before that “they were [once] Norwegians who now live in Iceland.”103 This statement is a clear acknowledgement that the Icelanders are not now the same as Norwegians. Their definition as something else is based (in part) on their territorial location. The narrative also suggests how the common Norse ancestry between Iceland and Norway was open to manipulation by the Norwegian king. Earlier in the same tale Halldórr draws a comparison between himself and Haraldr and their respective fathers, Snorri goði and Sigurðr sýr.104 While the king reacts badly to this claim to genealogical parity he is unafraid, as we have seen, to use a similar argument to support Halldórr against a disgruntled Norwegian captain. At the end of the tale, in spite of an acrimonious parting between Halldórr and Haraldr in Trondheim and the former’s return to Iceland where he settled at Hjarðarholt, the king sends a message, inviting the Icelander to enter his service once more. If Halldórr were to agree to return, his decision would assure him of greater status than any other man of low birth.105 The wording of the king’s invitation, which Halldórr refuses, appears double-edged: while appearing to make amends, Haraldr is also reminding his former Icelandic retainer of his social rank and his place. The Icelanders’ social anxieties are likely connected to the opinion on the islanders’ origins so forcefully expressed by the author of the hn in the late twelfth century. According to this reckoning, the islanders were descended from criminals and the sagas attempt to redress this assertion again and again by locating their narratives around storied landnámsmenn, descended from illustrious Norwegian ancestors or other royal families, origins which their thirteenth-century Icelandic descendants could also claim. A number of these, including Egils saga, Grettis saga and Laxdæla saga, link individual chieftain families to prominent lineages in Norway and elsewhere. The Icelanders’ fear of being perceived as lowborn is a recurring motif, and Norwegians were not slow to remind the islanders of these ignominious origins, particularly when

103 íf xxiii, p. 184; íf v, p. 273. 104 íf v, p. 269. 105 íf v, p. 276: “ok engan mann skyldi hann hæra setja í Nóregi ótiginn.”

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they stood to make a gain at the Icelanders’ expense.106 When Egill travelled to Norway to claim his wife Ásgerðr’s paternal inheritance, Berg-Ǫnundr reminded him in no uncertain terms that his wife was not entitled to inherit from her father’s estate. Egill’s claim is based on Ásgerðr’s pedigree: she was “landowning-born and of noble family.”107 As the husband of Ásgerðr’s sister, Gunnhildr, a large degree of self-interest motivated Berg-Ǫnundr’s claim, but his argument was also based on a point of law. He urged the court to have Ásgerðr declared ambátt konungs (a king’s slave woman), because she was begotten when her mother and father were í útlegð konungs (under king’s outlawry).108 Both slavery and outlawry were barriers to inheritance. According to Grágás, Ásgerðr was not freeborn but an “outcast’s brat” and had no right to inherit.109 Laxdæla saga is particularly concerned with status. One episode within this narrative describes how another Icelander was reminded of his place relative to the Norwegian king. This account describes how Þorkell Eyjólfsson, whom the saga describes as “an important chieftain […] leading voice in the district  […] the most powerful man in Breiðafjörður,”110 travelled to Norway to obtain wood. He desired to build a church in Iceland of a similar design to that constructed by the Norwegian king in Nidaros. The king tempered Þorkell’s ambitions and suggested that a smaller building would still make for an impressive church and remarked that “it was ridiculous for a farmer’s son to compete with us [...] Should you be able to build a church [...] it will not be big enough to house your vanity”.111 Þorkell’s ambitions, together with his conceit, are identified by the king as inglorious. He has reminded Þorkell of his place: he should not be attempting to compete with a high-born king when he is but a lowly farmer’s son. More implicit suggestions that the Icelanders had a less than auspicious origin can be found in another episode within the same narrative. When Kjartan Óláfsson prepared to make his belated departure for home, Ingibjǫrg, the king’s sister, presented him with a beautiful white headdress embroidered with gold to give to his betrothed, Guðrún, as a wedding present.112 The gift comes with a message: Ingibjǫrg wants the women of Iceland to know that the 106 Inferior origins are often articulated within the context of inheritance disputes, such as those described in Egils saga and Eyrbyggja saga, when Norwegians are only too happy to remind the Icelanders of their ‘low-born’ status. 107 íf ii, p. 155. 108 íf ii, p. 156. 109 Grágás Ia, p. 224 [K118]. 110 íf v, p. 204. 111 íf v, p. 217. 112 íf v, p. 131.

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woman Kjartan consorted with in Norway was not descended from slaves.113 While Ingibjǫrg’s remark could be interpreted as a thinly disguised slur on the lesser-born status of the woman to whom Kjartan was betrothed, it might also be an acknowledgement on her part that, despite her noble status, Kjartan has not chosen her to be his wife. The gift of a Norwegian headdress, meanwhile, also suggests that true culture and treasures could only be acquired in Norway.114 This idea that even inanimate objects from Iceland were inferior to their Norwegian counterparts is also suggested in Fljótsdæla saga. When Þorvaldr obtains passage on board a trading ship that runs aground in Shetland (Hjaltland), he is left with only the Icelandic garments he is wearing and a large spear.115 When the ship’s cargo washed up on shore some time later: Thorvald and the earl let everyone have what he recognised, but there was much more which nobody claimed, since Icelandic goods were of small value compared with others that were there, because many people’s treasures were there.116 Icelandic goods, then, do not conform to many people’s ideas of ‘treasures’; they are of little intrinsic value. When Brandr decided to return to Iceland in Ljósvetninga saga his money is returned to him “this time in Norwegian silver.”117 There is again the implication that Icelandic coin is in some way different, lesser or inferior to its Norwegian equivalent. This example, together with those from Egils saga and Laxdæla saga, suggest that Icelandic status anxiety ­vis-à-vis Norway remained a concern in the thirteenth century despite the saga men’s construction of the islanders’ past around illustrious colonists, some of whom were related to the Norwegian kings or other royal houses. Of particular interest is Haraldr harðráði’s reaction to Halldórr’s claim to genealogical parity. It appears that while the Icelanders could affirm and reaffirm their common origins with Norwegians, this similarity did not sit comfortably with the Norwegian king’s perception of the lord-retainer relationship. 113 114 115 116 117

íf v, p. 131. íf v, p. 138. íf xi, p. 223. csi iv, p. 389. íf x, p. 128. This reference is from Vǫðu-Brands þáttr, which is included in the text of some editions of Ljósvetninga saga as Chapter 8. The íf edition includes this tale in the same volume as the saga but does not incorporate it into the text. Cleasby-Vigfússon, p. 136, note that the term eyri (pl. aurar) likely denoted “a certain coin [...] [the equivalent to] an ounce of silver or its amount in money.”

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Icelanders and the Norwegian King in Morkinskinna

Although the Norwegian kings have a conspicuous position in a number of the Íslendingasögur, it is the þættir embedded within the compendia of kings’ sagas that articulate Icelandic perceptions of self, kings, kingship and relations with Norway most fully, through their descriptions of interactions between Icelanders and the Norwegian king at his court. Of the three collections of konungasögur, Morkinskinna is notable for the fact that almost a quarter of the text is made up of such episodes, often pitting the Icelanders against the monarch in some test of character, wit or strength.118 The text reveals a certain reticence and unease. The trials faced by Icelanders at the Norwegian court are suggestive of the potential difficulties of dealing with a monarch and the reciprocal relationship between a lord and his subject. Before discussing some of its þættir in additional detail, it is worth placing Morkinskinna within the context of the broader Iceland–Norway relationship. Even though the island did not come under the official control of the Norwegian king until 1262–64, from the early thirteenth century Norway appears to have pursued a more determined and consistent foreign policy in relation to Iceland.119 This timing coincided with the restoration of peace in Norway. For over eighty years there had been civil war, but there was reconciliation in 1217, and the conflict largely ceased. Norway was governed by the young Hákon Hákonarson, who was a minor, with rule effectively in the hands of the leader of the army and Hákon’s uncle and father-in-law, Skúli B ­ árðarson.120 Norway was free to pursue her interests elsewhere. The issue underpinning thirteenth-century Norwegian interest in the island was initially an economic one. In 1215, a localized disagreement broke out between a merchant and the right of an Icelandic goði to levy prices on his wares. It spread, involving merchants in Norway, and even merchants from G ­ reenland. A shipping ban on sea traffic to Iceland was imposed by the ­Norwegian crown in 1219, and in 1220 Jarl Skúli Bárðarson even considered sending a Norwegian fleet to invade the island. This intended course of action was averted by the intervention of Snorri Sturluson. Hákon’s reaction and threatened invasion particularly influenced Icelandic authors, who articulated their concerns in their respective treatments of the 118 Theodore M. Andersson, ‘The King of Iceland,’ Speculum, 74, 4 (1999), p. 926. 119 Andersson, ‘King of Iceland,’ p. 928. 120 For further on the rule of Sverrir, Skúli and Hákon, see Sverre Bagge, From Gang Leader to the Lord’s Anointed: Kingship in Sverris saga and Hákonar saga Hákonarsonar (Odense, 1996).

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Norwegian kings. Each of the konungasögur compilations was most likely, in some way, a response to the Norwegian threat. The earliest of these was Morkinskinna, composed c.1220. The text advocates diplomacy and tact over abrasive lordship and military ambition. Fagrskinna, composed less than a decade later, displays overtly pro-Norwegian sentiments, while Heimskringla, the work of an Icelandic statesman and likely completed a decade after Fagrskinna, betrays a deliberate censoring of attitudes and episodes which might have offended a Norwegian audience.121 The lack of overtly Icelandic components in Heimskringla may, of course, have been due to the political ambitions of its author, who was acutely conscious of the editorial principles required to make his text palatable to a Norwegian audience. This may account for why a number of the þættir contained in the earlier ‘pro-Icelandic’122 Morkinskinna were not incorporated into Heimskringla. Morkinskinna, composed in the thirteenth century and overwhelmingly concerned with the reigns of Magnús Óláfsson and Haraldr Sigurðarson, reveals a different range of Icelandic opinions on Norwegian kingship.123 The þættir which it contains emphasize the importance of Icelanders to the Norwegian king within what we might term a ‘negotiated space,’ a zone of intimacy in which the monarch reveals his flaws, while the simple islanders reveal their sage judgement and noble character. The author clearly prefers law-giving kings concerned with domestic welfare to their foreign adventurer counterparts.124 This is tantamount to an Icelandic comment on Norwegian expansionist ambitions and self-aggrandizement. Those kings that aggressively pursued their ambitions overseas, Harald harðráði and Magnús berfœttr, died in the course of their campaigns. According to Morkinskinna, the Norwegian royal court was an environment where there was “both room and need for Icelanders and their special skills.”125 In his history of the Norwegian kings, Theodoricus monachus attested to the islanders’ interest in historical lore.126 Court-based Icelanders acted as royal historiographers, propagandists, storytellers and skalds (Þjóðólfr, Sighvatr, 121 Andersson, ‘King of Iceland,’ p. 929. 122 I am using Ghosh’s designation of the text as such in this instance: see his Kings Sagas, p. 185. 123 Ármann Jakobsson considers the portrayal of kingship in Morkinskinna and Heimskringla to be essentially positive in Í leit að konungi, pp. 142–143; and Staður í nýjum heimi: konungasagan Morkinskinna. For Ármann, critical opinions are expressed towards individual kings rather than the institution of kingship (Í leit að konungi, pp. 272–278). 124 Andersson, ‘Politics of Snorri Sturluson,’ p. 58. 125 Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Royal Pretenders,’ p. 53. 126 ha, p. 1.

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Hallfreðr). If the Icelandic skalds were ‘social agents,’ then their compositions were their ‘cultural capital’ and those islanders in Norway had the capacity to dominate court culture in their roles as poets, entertainers and royal historiographers to the political and intellectual elite.127 For Margaret Clunies Ross, these individuals occupied a ‘paradoxical position’: raised on what was perceived as a cultural periphery removed from courtly culture, they found themselves at the heart of a sophisticated royal environment where they were essentially given a platform upon which they could establish, consolidate and reaffirm the socio-political differences that existed between the two peoples.128 Officially their functions were to entertain and, as members of the king’s hirð (Vémundr), to be his marshals (Úlfr Óspaksson) or to serve as diplomatic emissaries (Gunnlaugr, Hallfreðr, Hjalti). At court, as well as in more informal environments, they both amused and criticized the king. If Morkinskinna is an account of what type of life the Icelanders might expect as subjects of the Norwegian king, then it expresses remarkably pro-Norwegian sentiments in its positive portrayal of kingship.129 Just as the Icelanders proved themselves worthy to serve royalty, the king had to prove himself worthy of overseeing such potential subjects. This criterion of ‘worthiness’ might be interpreted as implying a limitation on kingship. The relationship between king and islanders is the focus of many of the þættir interpolated within the chapters of Morkinskinna describing Haraldr’s reign. Whereas Heimskringla focuses almost entirely on Haraldr harðráði’s military prowess and skill in battle, Morkinskinna describes a Haraldr who is not only a proficient and successful warrior but also a strong and powerful king, skilled in medicine and a patron of the arts. The half-brother of Óláfr Haraldsson, whose own special relationship with the islanders was captured in the early eleventh-century Ólafslög, Haraldr was a particular benefactor of the Icelanders.130 When the island was in the throes of a famine, he dispatched four ships, laden with flour for purchase at a fair price, to Iceland. He also imposed a moratorium on the travel restrictions imposed on the islanders under the terms of the Ólafslög, so that the impoverished could leave the island.131 Notwithstanding his benevolence, the þættir embedded within the main narrative portray Haraldr harðráði in a different light to the surrounding text,

127 Wanner, Snorri Sturluson, pp. 54–57. 128 Clunies Ross, ‘From Iceland to Norway,’ pp. 55, 56; Wann Snorri Sturluson, p. 58. 129 Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Royal Pretenders,’ p. 53. 130 íf xxiii, p. 205: “Hann hefir verit allra Nóregskonunga vinsælastr við Íslendinga.” 131 íf xxiii, p. 205.

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so much so that Gustav Indrebø believed them to be later insertions.132 This Norwegian king, a man untroubled in his interactions with other foreign peoples and considered to be the wisest of Scandinavian kings,133 is portrayed in the þættir as the “moral and intellectual loser in his dealings with [his] Icelandic visitors.”134 This alternative presentation of the Norwegian king is derived from the “principles of amplification”135 upon which the text is structured and its author’s concern with kingly virtues. The king, as the earthly representative of Christ, was not merely a man, he was an ideal; he was expected to behave accordingly and conduct himself in an impeccable fashion. For all his strength and sagacity, Haraldr lacks restraint.136 This is his major shortcoming: his intemperance makes him volatile, greedy, ambitious and impatient. His lack of self-control may even have contributed to his death in battle in 1066. A number of þættir within Morkinskinna describe resourceful, stout Icelanders who are more than a match for the Norwegian kings, particularly Haraldr harðráði, in terms of their skill, diplomacy, generosity and quick-wittedness. Hreiðars þáttr reveals, on the one hand, the wisdom of Haraldr and, on the other, his wrathful nature.137 A socially awkward Icelander with a swarthy complexion called Hreiðarr travelled to the court of King Magnús with his brother, Þórðr, who was one of the king’s men. Hreiðarr inspected the Norwegian monarch closely and, despite his childlike demeanour, remarked that one of the king’s eyes was slightly higher than the other. Magnús received this assessment favourably, for Haraldr had once made a similar observation. Hreiðarr’s rumbustious nature brought him to the attention of Haraldr’s men, one of whom he killed. Haraldr was determined to get compensation for the death of his retainer and accepted a pig Hreiðarr had crafted out of silver for him. Haraldr’s initial delight turned to rage when he realized that the animal was a sow and not a boar. Not only was this a slight on the Norwegian king’s masculinity, it was also a reminder of his father’s less than flattering nickname: Sigurðr sýr.138 The outwardly inferior Icelander, possessed of keen observation, had the last laugh at the expense of the warrior king. 132 Ármann Jakobsson, ‘The Individual and the Ideal: The Representation of Royalty in Morkinskinna,’ Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 99, 1 (2000), p. 72. 133 íf xxiii, p. 204; íf xxix, p. 261. 134 Andersson, The Partisan Muse, p. 121. 135 Ármann Jakobsson. ‘The Amplified Saga: Structural Disunity in Morkinskinna,’ Medium Ævum, 70 (2001), p. 36. 136 Ármann Jakobsson, ‘Individual and the Ideal,’ p. 77. 137 íf xxiii, pp. 152–164; íf x, pp. 247–260. 138 One might wonder whether the sow reference and its association with his father was perceived by Haraldr (and Morkinskinna’s audience) as a reminder that he was the son of

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If the above episode suggests Haraldr’s (initial) appreciation of skilled craftsmanship, other þættir attest to Haraldr’s love of poetry and story-­telling.139 Haraldr’s interest in presenting a particular view of himself and being remembered as an aggressive, successful ruler, is suggestive of the underlying anxieties felt by the unnamed protagonist of Íslendings þáttr sǫgufróða. This episode gives an account of an Icelandic storyteller at the court of Haraldr and how, when he has run out of stories one winter, he is forced to tell one about the youthful king in Byzantium, a tale he spins out over thirteen days. The tale does not go down well with the royal court, but the magnanimous king has no doubt that, despite its content, it was a tale well told.140 Auðunar þáttr vestfirzka tells of how a young man, Auðunn from the West Fjords, sailed to Greenland and traded all his belongings there to purchase a polar bear, which he intended to give to King Sveinn of Denmark as a gift.141 When Haraldr learned of the bear, he tried to buy it from Auðunn, who refused to be parted from it or his quest. After undertaking a pilgrimage to Rome, Auðunn returned to Sveinn, but decided to sail for Iceland in the spring. En route he returned, as promised, to Haraldr. In their exchange, Auðunn revealed his superior wit, tact and diplomacy. The circumstances in which a king’s gift may be given away should be extraordinary: Auðunn gives the Norwegian king the ring Sveinn had given him as repayment for the clemency and safe passage afforded to him and his bear by the Norwegian king. Brands þáttr ǫrva highlights Haraldr’s fatal flaw: his lack of restraint and selfcontrol.142 The notoriously cranky, waspish Norwegian king was determined to test the largesse of the man Brandr, described by his Icelandic poet, Þjóðólfr, as being so distinguished and accomplished that it was apparent that no other man “was better suited to be the king of Iceland on account of his generosity and personal greatness.”143 It is not clear whether Þjóðólfr’s glowing description of his fellow countryman was perceived by Haraldr as either a threat or as a thinly veiled challenge. The king proceeded to test Brandr’s generous nature to the utmost and requested his cloak, axe and tunic. Brandr complied with the king’s demands without uttering a single word. When he gave the king his tunic, he kept one sleeve for himself. This act suggests the imposition of limits on a man’s largesse, even when bestowing goods on a king. Haraldr interpreted

139 140 141 142 143

a petty king who, allegedly, was more interested in farming than political ambitions. íf xxiii, p. 205. íf xxiii, pp. 235–237; íf xi, pp. 335–336. íf xxiii, pp. 217–223; íf vi, pp. 361–368. íf xxiii, pp. 230–232; íf iv, pp. 189–191. íf xxiii, p. 231.

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it as a sign of Brandr’s wisdom and recognition that he believed the king “to have one hand that always takes and never gives.”144 In this way, Haraldr was reminded that a “gift always seeks its return” and, as a king, he must be a generous lord.145 The reciprocity of generosity is also a theme of Ísleifs þáttr byskups, in which Brandr gives a gift bestowed on him by the king to the priest Ísleifr. The anger of Óláfr Haraldsson is tempered only when he realizes the circumstances behind the gifting.146 Although Brandr may have remained mute in his dealings with Haraldr, Halli is more than slightly vocal in Sneglu-Halla þáttr.147 Halli, a skald, is described as foryfldisk148 and orðhákr (impudent).149 Haraldr accepted Halli into his service although he considered Icelanders to be einráðir (wilfull, stubborn) and ósiðblandnir (unsociable).150 A series of comical episodes then ensued. The king tried to hold Halli to order, but on each occasion the Icelander proved himself by means of his quick tongue and wits. The tale also nods to a recurring Norwegian sneer at a perceived lack of Icelandic refinement. In this case the focus is on the simple culinary preferences of Halli, a man of plain tastes who loved nothing more than porridge which, when buttered, was beyond compare.151 Haraldr attempted to turn this love of porridge against Halli and ordered him to eat a trough full of it, but the Icelander refused to sprengja sik á grauti (to burst himself on porridge).152 When Haraldr learned of Halli’s demise years later, he remarked, “Á grauti myndi greyit sprungit hafa”153 (the poor wretch must have burst himself eating porridge). Halli is not the only Icelander to be ridiculed for his simple tastes. Þorsteinn, who rescued Styrbjǫrn  – King Magnús in disguise – consumed his porridge greedily and noisily and became the butt of Norwegian jokes as a result.154 Equally derogatory remarks are made about the islanders’ fondness for suet. In Gísls þáttr Illugasonar, Soni, the chief of the king’s guests,155 brands the Icelanders as t­ ómlátir 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155

íf xxiii, p. 232. This sentiment is expressed in Hávamál. cpb i, p. 12. íf xvi, pp. 335–338. íf ix, pp. 263–295; íf xxiii, pp. 270–284. íf xxiii, p. 270. Cleasby-Vigfusson, p. 167, define foryfldisk as “to shrink from nothing.” íf ix, p. 265. íf ix, p. 266. íf v, p. 251: the unsociability of Icelanders is also evident in the description of Halldórr Snorrason, who is “choleric of temper like other Icelanders.” íf xxiii, p. 274: “Gǫrr matr es þat – smjǫrvan”; íf ix, p. 271. íf ix, p. 274. íf ix, p. 295. íf xi, pp. 329–332. The ‘guests’ were an elite force of men who spied on the king’s enemies.

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(slow, dull),156 while Einar þambarskelfir’s manservant, Kali, describes the islanders as mǫrlanda[r] (suet-eating / lard-eating) in Halldórs þáttr Snorrasonar hinn fyrri.157 These references to food, porridge, suet and bread-and-butter (Reykdæla saga og Víga-Skútu)158 are all uttered by Norwegians to highlight the lack of culture and refinement of the Icelanders, contrasting what they saw as these primitive peculiarities with their own, more refined tastes. Yet in all of these narratives, these superficial failings are just that. The Norwegians, for all their refinements, tend to lack character, while the innate nobility of the Icelanders is concealed beneath a rustic exterior.159

The King of Iceland

A king’s court was the environment sought out by many Icelanders abroad and it was often here that their alterity was expressed. The presence of ambitious freeborn islanders at court allowed the authors of the Íslendingasögur, konungasögur and þættir to express their views on regnal authority. The episodes from Morkinskinna discussed above suggest that, in many instances, Icelanders were as qualified to hold the office of kingship as those monarchs. In Þorvalds þáttr víðförla, Þorvaldr is compared to a king by King Sveinn, who describes him as “wise as a wise king ought to be, as strong and bold as the fiercest berserk, as well-bred and well-mannered as the noblest sage.”160 This idea that an Icelander possessed the necessary attributes to be a king is first expressed in the context of the ‘king of Iceland’ in Hungrvaka, the anonymous ecclesiastical chronicle about the first five bishops of Skálholt. When Gizurr Ísleifsson, the second bishop of Iceland, appeared before the Norwegian king, Haraldr is reported as having remarked that this particular Icelander was “well qualified to have whatever noble title he was allocated.”161 The text goes on to declare that in the course of his lifetime Gizurr attained such honour that it might justifiably be said that “he was both king and bishop over the land for as long as he lived.”162 156 íf iii, p. 335. 157 íf v, pp. 251–260, at p. 253. 158 íf x, p. 181. 159 Miller, Audun, p. 20, describes Auðunn as “the bumpkin who turns out to be a cagey sophisticate.” This description may be applied to many Icelanders in Norway. 160 csi v, p. 359. 161 íf xvi, p. 14. 162 íf xvi, p. 16.

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This glowing attribution may be derived from Íslendingabók’s assessment that Gizurr was “the most popular of all the land’s men that we have known in this land.”163 Ari stops short of explicitly using the word ‘king’ even if there were historical grounds for making such an association: Gizurr Ísleifsson was the grandson of Gizurr inn hvíti, who, it will be recalled, was related to the Norwegian royal household. Related to the Haukdælir on his mother’s side, Ari would have known of this blood relationship. His decision to omit any reference to this relationship was probably entirely deliberate: a declaration of Gizurr as king would have been inappropriate shortly after his death in 1118. The author of Hungrvaka, who was clearly familiar with Íslendingabók and modelled his own work on that of Ari, was also writing under the aegis of the Haukdælir, albeit somewhat later. His aim, however, was somewhat different. His motivation is laid bare in the prologue to the work, in which he reveals his concern to preserve the information he personally knows about the origins of the bishops of Skálholt, their lives and deeds in written form for posterity to whet the appetite of his reader (or listener) for the acquisition of additional knowledge about these remarkable men, above and beyond that contained in his chronicle.164 Writing c.1200, and possibly between 1206–11, the author of Hungrvaka was sufficiently removed from Gizurr’s immediate death to favourably and laudatorily compare him posthumously to a king.165 This ­acclamation dovetails with the text’s presentation of the Haukdælir as the royal family of Iceland; it is also suggestive of a noticeable shift in Icelandic perceptions of kingship. A number of references to the ‘king of Iceland’ are also included in the first of the compendia of konungasögur, Morkinskinna, which was written in the early thirteenth century. The first of these takes place at the aforementioned meeting between Haraldr harðráði and Gizurr. In this instance, however, Haraldr himself makes the statement, personally acknowledging that Gizurr was a man suitably qualified to be a king. He declares: What you tell of him could be made into three men. He could be a viking chieftain, and has the makings for it. Given his temperament, he could be a king, and that would be fitting. The third possibility is a bishop, and 163 íf i, p. 22. 164 íf xvi, p. 3. 165 Finnur Jónsson suggested a composition date of c.1200 for Hungrvaka, i.e. before the death of Gizurr Hallsson, while Guðbranður Vigfússon, Sigurður Nordal and Gúðni Jónsson all favour sometime between 1206 and 1211. For a more recent discussion of the dating of the text see Ásdís Egilsdóttir, ‘Formáli,’ in íf xvi, pp. vi–xxxi, esp. p. xxvii.

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that is probably what he will become, and he will be a most outstanding man.166 Haraldr does not make this statement to Gizurr personally, however. From the series of flattering descriptions of Gizurr in Íslendingabók, Hungrvaka, Morkinskinna and Kristni saga, it should probably come as no surprise that even the elements mourned his loss, believing a Golden Age had come to a close.167 The second reference to the ‘king of Iceland’ in Morkinskinna occurs in the course of Þjóðólfr’s flattering description of his fellow countryman, Brandr Vermundarson, to the king. Again, this remark is made to Haraldr and is possibly the reason why the king was so determined to test the calibre of the Icelander. One must wonder whether the inclusion of these episodes was seen as a vehicle to draw attention once more to some of Haraldr’s less positive attributes. A king’s flaws were evident if he was a tyrant (tyrannus) or inept (inutilis). A useful king had to possess the necessary skills and virtues to rule.168 The þættir in Morkinskinna amplify Haraldr’s shortcomings: he could be wrathful and act like a tyrant; he was prone to mockery, lacked self-control and moderation; he could, however, exhibit wisdom and judgement; and display an appreciation of artistic skill and loquaciousness. For all his flaws he was not a rex inutilis. Being compared to a king, particularly a Norwegian king, was not always a positive association. The late thirteenth-century text Bandamanna saga ­concerns the attempts of Ófeigr to void an unreasonable and contrived prosecution taken against his son by a group of avaricious goðar. Ófeigr refers to one of these men, Járnskeggi, sarcastically, asking him “whether it was true, that King Haraldr [had] said that you were best suited to be king of Iceland?”169 Járnskeggi, whose actions and greedy nature have already been underlined, is further revealed as being vain and also harbouring pretensions to royal status. He is forced to respond that, while the king often spoke graciously to him “I don’t know if he meant all that he said.”170 Although no direct reference to the ‘king of Iceland’ is contained in the post-Commonwealth narrative Hrafnkels saga, the entire text serves as an open admonition to those who conduct themselves as if they were kings.171 Overbearing authority and swagger, whether exacted by a distant lord or a local chieftain, was undesirable. To be 166 167 168 169 170 171

Morkinskinna, p. 255. íf XV2, p. 44. Ármann Jakobsson, ‘The Rex Inutilis in Iceland,’ Majestas, 7 (1999), pp. 41–53. íf vii, pp. 348–349. íf vii, p. 349. íf xi, pp. 97–133.

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compared, explicitly or implicitly, to a king was not necessarily a favourable assessment of a man or his character. Conclusion The personal relationships between Icelanders and Norwegians are laid bare in the Íslendingasögur and in the þættir within Morkinskinna. Although some of these encounters are conducted in more formal settings than others, all are narratives about the past and provide the means for self-definition.172 They are a key aspect of communal memory.173 Perceptions of the present are affected by the past and the experience of the past.174 These narratives are variegated: their accounts of an earlier relationship between Iceland and Norway are coloured by thirteenth-century views of the past. They are suggestive of how thirteenth-century Icelanders perceived Norwegians and the place of Iceland and its people relative to Norway and, more importantly, how they perceived that relationship to have been in an earlier period. These episodes are not made up of neutral information. The inclusion of adventures set outside Iceland serves to link the island to the wider Norse world, while those set within Iceland involving Norwegian characters do not appear to be chance or tangential inclusions. Even in those instances where the Norwegian concerned is ‘inconsequential’ and contributes very little to the plot, the incorporation of such a character into the narrative represents a deliberate choice on the part of the author. The memory of these affiliations and relationships highlights the human experience of different peoples interacting with one another. They provide for a humanized understanding of a sometimes hostile relationship, one that oscillated between suspicion and acceptance on behalf of the islanders and between disinterest and engagement on the part of the Norwegian king. The descriptions of Norwegians in Iceland and Icelanders in Norway are not solely constructed around the placement of individuals in an unfamiliar environment: they are also concerned with drawing contrasts. There are limited references to ethnic distinctions on the basis of appearance; rather distinctions are expressed in terms of territory and ideologies, some of which were religious, others political. Stereotyping occurs in relation to both Icelanders 172 Geoffrey White, Identity Through History: Living Stories in a Solomon Islands Society (Cambridge, 1991), p. 5. 173 Connerton, How Societies Remember, pp. 16–17. 174 Connerton, How Societies Remember, p. 2.

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and Norwegians. While this runs the risk of presenting simplistic portrayals of Icelander-Norwegian interaction, it can also convey some basic but valid ideas. In Iceland, Norwegians are frequently portrayed as unnamed or shadowy figures operating on the fringes of society, but also fulfilling certain important functions. Their marginality is emphasized in their behaviour. Many are barely tolerated guests, little more than irritants, stumbling into the lives of the Icelanders and their communities. In one respect, the characterization of Norwegians in Iceland as ‘men behaving badly’ may be an attempt by Icelandic authors to redress the balance, upended by the Norwegian contention that the island’s inhabitants were the offspring of slaves and scoundrels. This sense that a man’s innate character and personality is his ticket to acceptance is a recurrent theme within the narratives, which also reveal that even the most doggedly held prejudices can be overcome. The accounts of Icelanders returning to Norway to acquire status, wealth or simply to assert their ancestral inheritance rights in that land provide an opportunity for the authors of these narratives to make certain pronouncements on the regime abandoned by the earliest settlers. It enabled a line to be drawn between “the new beginnings and the old tyranny.”175 The appearance of discontinuity centres on the lack of a king. For a country without a king of its own until the late thirteenth century, kingship appears to have exerted a hypnotic fascination over many Icelanders. Icelandic attitudes towards the Norwegian king, the idea of monarchy and a native aristocracy are expressed within the Íslendingasögur and þættir. A key component of the þættir is the relationship between a king and his subject. This interaction, as we have seen, is based on loyalty and reciprocity. Within the period under investigation, however, the king’s direct activity in Iceland is limited, even though he remains both ominous and present. We might tentatively speculate that there was a greater degree of royal intervention in Iceland between the ninth and eleventh centuries and that many such early references to Norwegian involvement in domestic affairs were either omitted or reduced in the works of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelandic authors. Speculation aside, the accounts describing this time emphasize court-based activities and, in particular, the successes of the Icelanders in this arena. The þættir provide a collection of episodes describing how certain Icelanders often got the better of the Norwegian king. These accounts are about court politics, appropriate behaviour at court and esteemed qualities in ruler and subject alike. They also speak, to varying degrees, of control or, in the case of Haraldr harðráði, of a lack of control. What is particularly striking is that, despite the 175 Connerton, How Societies Remember, p. 7.

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unflattering portrayal of a number of kings, the islanders continued to seek this figure out and obtain his friendship. The most coveted status was that conferred by the king. Icelanders not only travelled to the king’s court, they travelled to court the king. Where their power was personal, his had a more abstract and therefore more absolute provenance. The lack of a monarch immediately throws up a distinct ideological contrast between Icelanders and Norwegians. What is interesting is that although they were cognizant of the ideological differences, specifically the differing modes of governance practised by themselves and Norwegians, the Icelanders do not appear to have considered these constitutional maxims mutually exclusive. It also points to a strategy of distinction on the part of the islanders. In Norway, the Norwegian king had emerged as the most potent national identifier for the inhabitants of that land. It became the case that to have one’s residence in Norway and to be a subject of the Norwegian king made a man ‘Norwegian.’ An Icelander, on the other hand, was defined territorially as being an inhabitant of Iceland. His independent status was not restricted to the island’s own autonomy. It was also linked to his behaviour abroad: at the Norwegian court, away from home, the islanders had to be resolute, stout and live by their wits. The value placed on these personal characteristics is evident in those descriptions of Icelanders getting the better of or ‘besting’ the Norwegian king. While a number of the narratives reveal a palpable distaste in Norway for the Icelanders, their uncouthness and their lack of manners, this disdain worked less as motivation to action for Norwegians than did the spectre of dealing with a people who displayed no allegiance to any higher authority figure. Exposure to the king and his court opened up the potential for civilizing the Icelanders – at least those who were present – but the political ambivalence and swagger exhibited by islanders such as Gunnlaugr, Halli and Halldórr was surprisingly durable. The ways in which Icelandic conduct at the Norwegian court is described conveys strong and unmistakable judgements on the action or inaction of the king. These displays of ambivalence towards Norwegian authority should be placed within the context of Icelandic–Norwegian relations. Norwegian pressure on Iceland acted as a barometer for Icelandic attitudes towards Norwegians. The manner in which Iceland resisted that pressure is articulated in the politically ambivalent attitudes towards Norwegian authority and the Icelanders’ ‘besting’ of the Norwegian king. These ‘besting’ episodes are fascinating in and of themselves: they neutralize the negative perceptions of the Icelanders, perceptions that, in textual form at least, were generated by Icelandic authors. In these episodes, however, the Icelanders are the king’s champions. They had the capacity to demonstrate that they were not only qualified to be the king’s subjects, but were even more qualified to

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be his subjects than their Norwegian counterparts.176 This aspect of the wider Iceland–Norway relationship is one that is negotiated and renegotiated. Kingly attributes and qualification for office are a key concern of the Icelandic konungasögur. In order to be an effective ruler the king had to exhibit wisdom, strength and generosity; he had to obtain the support of his men and his subjects. Morkinskinna’s preoccupation with these virtues is such that their display is consistently emphasized over the person of the king himself. Haraldr harðráði, a man considered to be extremely wise, a strong ruler respected and liked by his men, is nonetheless impatient, temperamental, prone to bouts of rage, cruelty, petty provocation and jealousy. He is a patron of the arts and ultimate benefactor to the islanders in their hour of need, yet he lacks restraint and self-control. A number of the episodes discussed earlier have juxtaposed the failings of this particular king and the successes of individual Icelanders at his expense. Given the islanders’ generally positive attitude towards kingship, one might wonder whether the author of Morkinskinna felt confident to illuminate Haraldr’s flaws simply because he made a distinction between the office and the office-holder. This contrast allowed for the office-holder to be scrutinized without criticizing the institution.177 This distinction does not seem to have applied to those islanders, such as Járnskeggi, who comported themselves like kings and compared themselves to royalty. For an Icelander to be a dutiful, loyal subject in Norway was a good thing; for him to harbour ideas clearly above and beyond his station back home was not. A distant king with limited direct control was one thing, but a native magnate was something entirely different. Powerful landowners had been present since the island’s settlement. The retrospectively expanded landnám of Skalla-Grímr justifies the later domain of the Mýramenn, while Geirmundr heljarskinn, the son of King Hjǫr and ‘the noblest born’ of the original colonists, is described as owning four farms and travelling with a large retinue. To all intents and purposes he conducts himself in an aristocratic fashion, although the landnámabækur stop short of referring to him as a king.178 Interestingly, one might argue that, Járnskeggi aside, the individuals considered suitable to be the ‘king of Iceland’ are men who pose no actual threat to the Norwegian monarch. Brandr is mute and generous, but draws the king’s attention to the fact that a good lord both takes and gives in equal measure, while the path trodden by Gizurr is an ecclesiastical one. Neither is a challenger to the king in any respect, other than posing a challenge to his sensibilities. The implicit threat 176 Ármann Jakobsson, Í leit að konungi, pp. 254–264, 272–278. 177 Bagge, From Viking Stronghold, p. 159. 178 íf i, pp. 154, 156 (S115); 155, 157 (H87).

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suggested by the expression ‘the king of Iceland,’ is in its usage by an Icelandic author, privy to the ways of court and the machinations of court politics. According to this reading, the employment of this term serves as a reminder that, in their pursuit of power and status, the descendants of the landnámsmenn are beginning to assume a similar set of Norwegian characteristics to those that had ostensibly prompted the migration of their forebears from Norway. It also serves as a veiled warning of the aspirations of some members of the Haukdælir and Oddaverjar, two families for whom claims to Norwegian royal blood could be made in the distant and more recent past respectively. The threat these individuals posed – willing to bend the knee to the distant king and return home with a royal title and armed men – was altogether more invidious. This was a double-edged threat, for it jeopardized Icelandic law, the same law that had built society, a law that, in the thirteenth century, frequently fell victim to power-hungry goðar who came, over time, to desire more status for themselves than that afforded solely by membership of the island’s petty aristocracy.

Conclusion This book has undertaken a critical examination of the relationship between Iceland and Norway from c.870 to c.1100 as memorialized in the documentary sources from the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. That relationship was the most important geo-political relationship in the island’s early history, enjoying a sustained relevance and meaning throughout the life of the Icelandic Commonwealth and beyond. While the intensification of Norwegian involvement in Icelandic affairs and the formalization of the island’s submission to the Norwegian king lie outside the purview of the present work, the historical and cultural links between these two component parts of the Norse world, links that would later buttress the king’s lordship over Iceland, had existed since the time of the landnám in the late ninth century. These points of continuity, together with the ruptures and breaks that emerged over time – the latter being most apparent in the island’s landownership, legal and political structures, all of which differed to those of its ancestral homeland – are characteristic of a relationship that was defined by a desire to belong to a wider Norse community, on the one hand, and the concomitant need to assert a distinct identity, on the other. The present work has focused on these fluctuating memories, which frequently cluster around recurrent themes and anxieties, and their articulation in medieval Icelandic constructions of the past. In early medieval Icelandic society, as in its European counterparts, the past was a very real and potent presence. It served as an exemplar, a mirror against which the present might be assessed and judged, often to be found wanting, while simultaneously legitimating contemporary political structures and social relationships, offering an explanation why things were thus. The shared beliefs about the past were the wellspring of identity, for the past defined who was and who was not part of the contemporary group.1 Early medieval Icelandic society, then, was delimited by its representations of the past which, following the conversion of the Icelanders to Christianity, were mediated through a series of different literary genres. Naturally, the use of texts written at some significant remove from the historical events they describe raises issues of historicity. Use of the medieval Icelandic sources is problematized further when their complicated history, particularly in terms of their age, origins, authorship, preservation and social context is considered. In this context, however, cultural memory studies provide particularly useful theoretical parameters within which medieval texts can be interpreted and 1 Innes, ‘Introduction,’ p. 1.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi 10.1163/9789004336513_008

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evaluated. This approach emphasizes the social components of memory and the constructed nature of its textual manifestation. Its focus is not on whether certain events happened precisely as described nor on narrow issues of historicity, but rather on how the memories of those events, inscribed in the common cultural pool of information underpinning the image of the collective past, were adapted, represented and mediated. Simply put, “memories about the past are thus never informative fragments of facts without a context and some purpose.”2 Cultural memory, with its focus on the “interplay of present and past in socio-cultural contexts” is especially relevant to the complex reconstruction of the past in later texts.3 It allows for a more source sensitive approach to be taken to those texts describing pre-twelfth-century medieval Iceland, as well as the social preoccupations and anxieties that underpinned and generated these multi-modal accounts. The texts examined in this book preserve evidence for how twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Icelanders perceived the past and what had, might have or should have occurred in an earlier time. Their image of the past was made for contemporary purposes and, in view of that, we need to discern and appreciate the social frameworks within which historical texts were constructed. Fundamentally, history is a study of the contents of memory and while the sources reveal significant details about their time of composition, they also mediate important information about the past even if that information was disseminated for reasons more pertinent to the circumstances of the present. Of particular concern to the medieval Icelanders was the place of Norway and Norwegians in their past. It was only natural for the islanders to be interested in Norway. This was, for the majority, their ancestral homeland, with which they shared a common ancestry, culture and, initially, a language. The national histories and saga narratives concur that Norway lay at the inception of Icelandic society. Icelandic self-consciousness began with Norway: the initial focus of Icelandic historical endeavour was Norwegian history and the history of the Norwegian kings in particular. Writing allowed the Icelanders to offset their island’s remote geographical location, giving the Icelanders an opportunity to locate themselves in the world. This placement was both textual and paratextual.4 The sources reveal that Norway and the Norwegian king were continuous presences in Icelandic history, suggesting that these elements were 2 Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Past Awareness in Christian Environments: Source-Critical Ideas about Memories of the Pagan Past,’ Scandinavian Studies, 85, 3 (2013), p. 408. 3 Erll, ‘Cultural Memory Studies,’ p. 2. 4 Margaret Clunies Ross, ‘Medieval Icelandic Textual Culture,’ Gripla, 20 (2009), 163–181. She defines paratextual as “the cultural attitudes that shaped people’s approach to composing

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subject to an ongoing debate as to where they fitted into the Icelandic present as well as their position in the Icelandic past. While it was neither possible nor, indeed, desirable to write Norway out of early Icelandic history, there was an opportunity to write Norway into Icelandic history in a certain way. Over time, this opportunity became a compulsion. The documentation of the past was the remit and responsibility of the memory specialists, those men who maintained and mediated cultural memory through their constructions of the past. These men were responsible for the reworking of existing traditions and texts for their own contemporary purposes; accordingly, they functioned not only as transmitters of historical information, but as arrangers, compilers and interpreters of memory. Although we know some of these individuals by name, their sources, together with the information and traditions to which they had access, are located in the transitional opacity between orality and literacy characterized by oral tradition, legends about heroic ancestors and landnámsmenn as well as historical lore or fræði, all of which enjoyed a cultural value. Many of the written sources utilized by these individuals are no longer extant, but these texts, whether in the form of notes or more fully-fledged narratives, undoubtedly also contributed to the pool of material that could direct and influence the perception of the past in future compositions. As a result, while the memory specialists’ constructions of the past naturally speak to their concerns and those of their patrons, their works, which co-existed with contemporary oral tradition, must also be considered products of multiple authorship and thus reflective of multiple intelligences. The past and the memory of that past was not only constantly being deliberately restructured and reformulated by the memory specialists, it was remembered differently in different contexts by different people. The descriptions of the past in the sources derived a significant power from the ‘meaningfulness’ assigned to them by their intended recipients. The past was, after all, where the present acquired its meaning and quality. The sources used in this examination are the products of a narrow, literate aristocratic elite. Representative of their own particular contexts – authorial, political, social and temporal – they illustrate a range of Icelandic perspectives on the past and on the place of Norway in that past. This multiplicity of authorial views and sentiments is expressed in a variety of different textual genres – the landnámabækur, Íslendingasögur, konungasögur and laws. These various literary forms were all modes of remembering: all capture specific moments of early Icelandic history, each illuminating the memory of the island’s particular kinds of texts in the first place, whether these were for religious reasons or born of the pressures of cultural recuperation of the past” (p. 171).

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early relationship with Norway in a different way. The presence of Norway in these works must necessarily be read as a response or reaction to specific circumstances and concerns. Accordingly, not only do these works form part of the historical dialogue between Iceland and Norway, a dialogue that had taken place since the island’s settlement in the late ninth century and, furthermore, one in which Norway had a voice of its own, but their accounts should be read within the context of and as a response to the shifts that the relationship between the two countries underwent. Furthermore, not only do the variant genres depict the past and the place of Norway in that past in slightly different ways, they also contribute to the formulation of perceptions of the past by their intended audiences.5 Although the Icelanders were the main practitioners of historical writing, they were aware that they were also chronicling their history, together with that of their ancestral homeland, for a potential Norwegian audience. The historical relationship between Iceland and Norway was defined by Ari Þorgilsson. Writing in the early twelfth century, Ari set out to present the Icelanders as members of a common Norwegian community connected by a shared past. This shared past was, according to his account in Íslendingabók, populated by high-born and well-connected Norwegians, who brought to the island with them the necessary Norwegian tools to found a ‘civilized’ society – the law, assemblies and change of faith, when it came. In this way, Íslendingabók connects key moments in early Icelandic history to Norway and the Norwegian kings, and the early Icelandic past is located and negotiated within the framework of the Norwegian past. For Ari, then, the relationship between Iceland and Norway is initially one of interdependence and c­ omplementarity before a distinct sense of Icelandic self-consciousness emerges. This self-­ consciousness is also articulated in the very process of history-writing itself. At best Íslendingabók offers a selective account of early Icelandic history, one that mediates the memory of the past through a literary filter. Some of the gaps in its account may be attributed to the partial invisibility of events to Ari; others, however, are more suggestive of historical referentiality and contemporary concerns. A desire to refute slurs or aspersions cast upon their origins and the legitimacy of the native aristocratic order is a recurring motivation for the dialogue between Iceland and Norway. It is, however, unclear whether Íslendingabók was generated by a sense of status anxiety experienced by the islanders. Whatever the precise background to Ari’s composition, he was concerned with establishing a specific type of Norwegian origin for the Icelanders. This is apparent in 5 Hermann, ‘Memory and Remembering,’ p. 33.

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the way in which he manages the Norwegian presence in his text, removing all trace of a foreign element, fashioning the memory of the settlement as a wholly noble Norse enterprise. He counteracts the gaps in the island’s history by drawing on a shared Norwegian past and the royal connections of the landnámsmenn and their descendants, thus bestowing legitimacy on the island’s first law-code and on the change of faith as well as its native aristocratic order and early ecclesiastical leaders. Deliberate narrative positioning enabled Ari to place the island within the continuum of Norwegian history and also to make a declaration of parity between Icelanders and Norwegians. His conceptualization of the island’s early relationship with Norway was understood in historical, cultural and spiritual terms. Each of these connective links with the ancestral homeland, however, assured the integrity of the island’s autonomous existence. In this way, Norway functions within a trope of appropriation and independence. Another interpretation of Íslendingabók within the parameters of the Iceland–­Norway relationship is, however, possible. Scholars have often emphasized the Icelando-centric focus of Ari’s account, claiming it to be irrefutable­ evidence of a distinct Icelandic identity. Yet the image of early Icelandic history depicted by Íslendingabók is a highly distorted one. The Irish elements, together with other undesirable or unfavourable details, are edited out entirely in favour of presenting the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway. We might tentatively wonder if Íslendingabók’s emphasis on Norwegian ancestry for the island’s population, laws and institutions, supports the later legitimacy of Norwegian hegemony over the island some hundred and fifty years before Iceland formally entered the Norwegian realm. Was Íslendingabók conceived as a work that could appeal to both an Icelandic and a Norwegian audience by using Norwegian ancestry in such a way as to underpin and legitimate Icelandic society while later justifying Norwegian rule? These different interpretations merely point to how multi-faceted and nuanced the memories of the island’s early relationship with Norway were; both point to the evolving cultural value of origins of a specific type, a concern that is taken up in the landnámabækur. These texts might be interpreted as historical snapshots; their compilation in the twelfth-, thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuries suggests they reflect different historical moments in the Iceland–Norway relationship and the value shared ancestry assumed at these moments. When the last of these texts was compiled by Haukr Erlendsson in the fourteenth century, the island had been a part of the Norwegian realm for almost four decades. The currency that a shared Norwegian ancestry had once obtained was diminished. That value was now re-assigned by Haukr to Irish origins and, in particular, to links with Irish royalty.

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If Ari’s aim was, as some scholars have suggested, to foster an immediate historical curiosity in Iceland, he was not wholly successful; instead, his successors continued to look to Norway for their material. When medieval Icelandic authors came to resume writing about Iceland, they would do so in a new literary form: the saga. This change in form does not mean that Íslendingabók’s version of events was contested, however. Ari’s account identified and fixed the ‘figures of memory’ around which early Icelandic history was constructed, inaugurating a grand narrative that was presented as historical truth and accepted as such by later authors, both Icelanders and Norwegians. Later authors of the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur reinterpreted and reconstructed the circumstances behind the settlement according to their own contemporary understandings of the relationship between Iceland and Norway. By the thirteenth century, Icelandic authors understood the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway rather differently. Locked within the controlled environment of a text, the Icelanders could safely manage and manipulate Norway for their own purposes. The accounts of individual colonists in the landnámabækur and the Norwegian prologues to a number of the Íslendingasögur offered explanations for the migration of so many noble Norwegians to Iceland. Unable to articulate their contemporary concerns about increased Norwegian interest in their island, Icelandic authors backdated these anxieties expressing them as ‘historical facts’ in their accounts. Like Ari, they wrote Norway into early Icelandic history in a specific way to legitimize their society and its autonomous existence, creating a myth of settlement that pitted independent, high-born Norwegians against the ambitions of an avaricious king. Of course the lineages and legacies of these noble Norwegians presented the ‘acceptable’ face of Norway. Such a Norwegian connection was worthy of preservation, for it established the bona fides of the Icelanders. Other, less desirable Norwegian, and indeed foreign, elements could be marginalized or swiftly excised from the island’s past and, it might have been hoped, present environment. Norway became the ultimate instrument of Icelandic historical memory. The compilers of the landnámabækur constructed expanded and indeed inflated narratives around some of the early landnámsmenn. Not only do the descriptions of these settlements provide glimpses of colour in an otherwise muted narrative palette of land-claims, they enabled the memory specialists documenting early Icelandic history to place memorable figures, such as Ingólfr Arnarson, Þórólfr mostrarskeggi and Geirmundr heljarksinn, at the centre of a web of culturally significant and important information. All of the aforementioned individuals were men of status in their Norwegian homeland; all three were important, well-connected local leaders who had enjoyed wealth and success. The change in their geographical location did not diminish their

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status or financial well-being, rather it enhanced their prestige and that of their descendants. The manner in which men like Ingólfr and Þórólfr are foregrounded in the landnámabækur of Sturla and Haukr suggests that cultural memory in Iceland was constructed around paradigms of exemplarity and the value-in-the-present of certain memories over others. The differences between the extant landnámabækur reveal the currency which certain memories and traditions obtained at different times. Since the landnám there had been continuous traffic between Iceland and Norway, an aspect of the countries’ relationship that the Ólafslög sought to protect and encourage. Icelanders travelled to Norway to trade, claim inheritances, affirm or re-establish family ties and, importantly, to serve the Norwegian king, usually as a member of his retinue or court skald. The Icelandic goðar were acutely aware of these connective elements. Some of the most important Icelandic writers, including Ari Þorgilsson, Snorri Sturluson and Sturla Þórðarson, belonged to the native chieftain class. At a time when the legitimacy of the native aristocratic order was being questioned, thirteenthcentury goðar lionized and immortalized the past of their ancestors, a process which endowed thirteenth-century families with merit and privileged status derived from genealogical links to prominent Norwegians. These genealogical links provided accounts of early Icelandic history with a Norwegian spine and this spine gave the Icelanders, or the most important of them, a connection to royalty, for chieftain families did indeed claim to have links with Norwegian and Danish royalty. Not only did these links justify their ‘claim to rule,’ by default they also upheld the integrity of the island’s acephalous existence. This community, established by noble Norwegian aristocrats, was governed by their genealogically-qualified descendants. Another expression of the on-going dialogue about status and origins between Iceland and Norway can be seen in the many accounts of able young Icelanders abroad at the royal court. These episodes allowed their authors to draw distinctions between Icelanders and Norwegians within larger accounts of the reworked, reconstructed past. These able young men were presented as having access to the Norwegian king, his court and his ear and were portrayed as the equals and, in many cases, the betters of their Norwegian cousins. Indeed these episodes exhibit a remarkable circularity with the accounts of the landnámabækur, as the descendants of high-born Norwegians who had fled their ancestral homeland in the late ninth century return as high-born Icelanders determined to seek and obtain the king’s favour. While the Icelander abroad exhibits wisdom, strength and generosity, the Norwegian king, on the other hand, is often impatient, petty and volatile. What is apparent, is that within the aforementioned ‘besting’ framework, many individual Icelanders

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draw attention to the failings of their Norwegian counterparts. A frequent exception is the Norwegian king, however, who, despite his initial difficulties, transcends his shortcomings. We might consider this to tally with the ongoing debate about the place of the king in island life and, more broadly speaking, changing Icelandic attitudes towards kingship. Some Icelanders are described as possessing the noble attributes of a king. These men pose no actual threat to the Norwegian king; rather through their effortlessly displayed regal virtues they draw attention to his failings. By the mid-thirteenth century, it appears that on some level the island, or at least its intellectual elite, had accepted the inevitability of increased Norwegian involvement and sway over the country. This hypothesis is borne out by the preservation of the Ólafslög. This treaty between Iceland and Norway was remembered by a thirteenth-century legal compiler as having been negotiated in the eleventh century between the Icelanders and Óláfr Haraldsson. Common ancestry underpinned the historical rights of Icelanders and Norwegians enshrined in the Ólafslög, binding the one people to the other. The Icelanders’ Norwegian origins entitled them to special privileges when in Norway while that same connection conferred legal rights on those Norwegians present in Iceland. Yet while the Ólafslög acknowledged the special status of the islanders within the historical context of their relationship with Norway and the Norwegian king, its terms were “not exactly equal or perfectly symmetrical, but were an expression of their differences.”6 The extant treaty is much more than a recognition of a distinct Icelandic identity, however; it is also a policy statement on the part of the Norwegian king vis-à-vis Iceland and the Icelanders. The preservation of the treaty was used as an element within the wider thirteenth-century strategy of the Icelanders to assert their status relative to Norway. It is hardly a coincidence that Icelanders sought to affirm and reaffirm the historical rights they enjoyed in Norway by connecting these rights to an eleventh-century martyr king who had become associated with a series of distinct traditions. This not only declared the validity of these rights and, by default, the special status of the Icelanders, it also associated those historical privileges with a named eleventh-century king. In this way, Óláfr Haraldsson is used as a paradigm of exemplarity: a strong and just king, an evangelizing monarch and saint, a law-giver to his own subjects and, on the basis of their special historical relationship, the Icelanders. He is thus employed as a guarantor for the rights conferred upon and enjoyed by Icelanders in Norway since the early eleventh century. 6 Boulhosa, Icelanders, p. 212.

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By the fourteenth century, however, Iceland had formally entered the Norwegian king’s jurisdiction. There was no longer any need to emphasize noble common origins. A new and different relationship existed between the two countries and between Icelanders and Norwegians. The continued composition of the sagas and landnámabækur remained part of the same project to affirm and validate the Icelanders’ relationship with Norway and with the Norwegian king in particular. Their common ancestry may not have required consideration, but the place of the Norwegian king in the island’s domestic affairs did. Now within the official jurisdiction of the king, fourteenth-century authors attempted to recast the memory of Norwegian kingship in an effort to legitimize Norwegian authority over the island as something less coercive and more consensual. The intrinsic value of royal authority and the socio-­ legal functions of kings were retrospectively interpolated into the memory of earlier relationships that went back to Haraldr hárfagri. There is a discernible move away from the clash between the new and old orders described in earlier versions of the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur in favour of a past constructed within the framework of the king-subject relationship, such as that described in Vatnsdæla saga. The submission of the island was not described as a sudden capitulation or a Norwegian coup, but in terms of the gradual erosion of autonomy. The Icelanders, meanwhile, whether through the maintenance of friendly relationships with the Norwegian king or by dutifully abiding by his ruling, were depicted as subjects worthy of a king. The characterization of Norwegians in Iceland in many of the Íslendingasögur tallies with the changes the Iceland–Norway relationship underwent in the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The appearance of ­Norwegian characters in the sagas indicates not only that Norwegians continued to make up a distinct group in Iceland, but that their presence and involvement in these accounts were expected by the saga audience. On this basis, we have to assume that the inclusion of this particular Norwegian element was meaningful and remained significant throughout the period in which the sagas were composed and written down. While the descriptions of Norwegians in these narratives suggest that some general statements may be made, it would be incorrect to reduce the characterization of Norwegians across the saga corpus to little more than crude stereotypes. Stereotypes did indeed exist, and Norwegian characters were often used as literary tropes, but to read every Norwegian within these parameters overlooks the greater complexity in the island’s memory of its early relationship with Norway. The concise selection of episodes discussed in Chapter 5 reveal that the identities of Norwegians in Iceland were both complex and variable. They are suggestive of disparate and multi-layered Icelandic attitudes towards Norway and Norwegian values.

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Equally, the descriptions of Icelanders interacting with Norwegians in Iceland reveal the islanders were not the submissive partners in this relationship, rather many were happy to exploit the Norwegian presence for their own purposes and make a gain at their expense. The episodes within the narratives that place the individual outside of his domestic environment allow for more diverse identities to be assumed and expressed by Norwegians and Icelanders alike. These ‘uncertain identities,’ particularly those assumed by Icelanders in Norway, are indicative of a more nuanced, multi-faceted attitude towards Norway than that for which contemporary political events alone can account. Clunies Ross identifies the Icelandic skalds at the Norwegian court as representing a key paradox in the Iceland–Norway relationship. From the Norwegian perspective, Iceland was backward and its people were provincial country-bumpkins, uncouth and uncultured, yet the Icelandic skalds, the acknowledged experts in documenting the past and practitioners of ars poetica, nonetheless managed to navigate the etiquette of a royal court without having been raised in such august surroundings themselves.7 While this might broadly be interpreted as the Icelanders’ besting their Norwegian counterparts and their attitudes, it is surely significant that the negative attributes ascribed to Icelanders in Norway, whether it be their simple tastes, poor manners or apparent naïveté and gullibility in the ways of the world, are conferred upon those individuals by their fellow countrymen, the memory specialists, who recorded their exploits at the Norwegian court. It is probable that accounts of Icelanders’ dealings with the kings of Norway did not come from Norwegian tradition, so we might wonder how this information was obtained and what adjustments were made.8 Their precise sources aside, the Icelandic memory specialists are responsible for communicating a sense of Norwegian superiority; this is achieved by emphasizing the apparent inferiority of the Icelanders relative to their Norwegian counterparts and the negative characterization of Icelanders. The depiction of the islanders occupying the cultural fringes in every respect is thus a product of medieval Icelandic authors. While the way some Icelanders at home were negatively depicted in the Íslendingasögur suggests that certain portrayals were motivated by the benefit accruing to a particular family or group within the narrative’s geographical setting, it does not adequately explain this feature in other accounts of Icelanders abroad. Shami Gosh may well wonder what place the colonists’ past assumed

7 Clunies Ross, ‘From Iceland to Norway,’ pp. 55–57. 8 Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas, p. 177.

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in early Icelandic history,9 but an equally pertinent question is why Icelandic authors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries felt the need to frame their characterization of Icelanders in Norway in (initially) negative terms? Was the typology of these characters dictated by the literary framework of the ‘besting’ motif or is it suggestive of something more complex? Is it, perhaps, indicative of a sense of the growing uncertain identity felt by the Icelanders at home and abroad in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries – an ambivalent identity that was used to navigate the changes wrought in the island’s relationship with Norway at this time? Are these individuals reflective of a perceived change in status and of efforts at interpreting this change? Is the increasingly ambivalent Icelander abroad coincidental with increased Norwegian involvement at home? The sources constructing the Icelandic past between the ninth and eleventh centuries reveal that just as the memory of the island’s early relationship with Norway fluctuated during this period, so too did a sense of Icelandic identity. Both of these elements found their expression in the self-consciousness of insular historiography and the onward transmission of selective information about the past. It is important to bear in mind that most of the extant sources were either produced by or for the island’s leading families and, as such, sought to protect their present and future interests. In their collective efforts to manage perceptions of their past in times of stress, the Icelandic memory specialists subscribed to an approach taken elsewhere. In an analysis of eighth- and ninthcentury Frankish historiography, J.M. Wallace-Hadrill contended that the political challenges faced by the Carolingian kings affected the management of historical information. He argued that an interest in the past was fostered and promoted by dynasties in times of crisis.10 The sources examined in our present study indicate that, similarly, the identity of the native ruling class was being challenged, particularly in early thirteenth-century Norway. This interrogation of the goðar’s identity, and particularly those who claimed to be connected to the Norwegian royal family, underpinned the trade dispute that broke out between the two countries in the opening decades of the thirteenth century. But the shifting political relationship alone does not adequately explain the altered position of Norway in Icelandic literature. The existence of different literary genres suggests that medieval Icelanders had different perceptions of the past and used different forms of literary commemoration to articulate these perceptions. The initial focus of Icelandic historical writing was Norway and the Norwegian kings; an interest in these monarchs continued in the konungasögur while the first Icelanders around whom sagas were written were poets 9 Ghosh, Kings’ Sagas, p. 177. 10 J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Franks and the English in the Ninth Century: Some Common Historical Interests,’ History, 35 (1950), 202–218.

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who frequented the Norwegian court. The accounts of a number of important early settlers, documented in the landnámabækur and Íslendingasögur, are framed within the context of their Norwegian ancestry and later dealings with Norwegians in Iceland and abroad. Across these genres, the space occupied by Norway changes: the country and its kings feature little in the landnámabækur, are more visible in the Íslendingasögur and assume a dominant role in the kings’ sagas. The increased status anxiety felt by the Icelanders visà-vis their Norwegian counterparts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries corresponds to the appearance of ‘uncertain identities’ and the emergence of literary fiction.11 The development of different literary genres gave the memory specialists additional ways in which to negotiate the island’s historical relationship with Norway. Following submission, the place of Norway and the Norwegian king changed in Icelandic history once again. The currency or allure of Norway appears to have dwindled as the symbolic capital it had once enjoyed was gradually eroded, at least in insular writing. Royal appointments downgraded the historical blood relationships the native chieftains had claimed with the Norwegian kings. Accordingly, an emphasis was placed on connections, blood-ties and marriage to the royal households of other countries. This shift is particularly discernible in Haukr Erlendsson’s treatment of the Gaelic/ Irish element in his fourteenth-century Landnámabók. Overall, Icelandic constructions of the past become less focused on a narrow definition of common ancestry, instead expanding its scope to embrace a broader Germanic (Poetic Edda) and Scandinavian (fornaldarsögur) past. D. Vance Smith has written that, “By and large, what we know of the Middle Ages is the legacy of medieval memory, not ours. We know what we do because of what people in the Middle Ages chose to designate as memorable.”12 Of course people remember what they are attentive to and the medieval Icelanders were particularly attentive to Norway and Norwegians. Through a series of complex constructions of the past, based on the interplay between history, memory and myth, medieval Icelandic authors sought to define the role played by Norway in their past. Writing about their Norwegian past armed the Icelanders. It provided them with a framework within which their contemporary concerns, though temporally located in the past, could be safely articulated. By stressing their commonalities the islanders were also establishing themselves not as a particular type of Norwegian, but as a particular type of Norwegian descendant. In this way, they claimed the Norwegian past on their own terms. 11 12

Torfi H. Tulinius, The Matter of the North: The Rise of Literary Fiction in Thirteenth-Century Iceland, trans. Randi C. Eldevik (Odense, 2002). D. Vance Smith, ‘Irregular Histories: Forgetting Ourselves,’ New Literary History, 28, 2 (1997), p. 171.

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Their narratives reveal an on-going tension between a desire to belong and a desire to be seen as different but equal. But they are much more than “a natural expression of human curiosity”.13 The memory of this shared past allowed medieval Icelanders to possess their past. It afforded them an opportunity to shore up “deeper ­incompatabilities and elisions.”14 The documentation of the historical relationship between Iceland and Norway and Icelanders and Norwegians enabled Icelandic authors to make claims of parity in textual form if not in actuality. These claims, which began in twelfth century assertions of common ancestry, developed into definitions of contemporary status based on that common ancestry. This status was special and privileged. It redressed what might have appeared to external observers as native deficiencies. It was a status that had been acknowledged by a Norwegian king in the eleventh-century who had associated it with a series of historical rights and privileges. Over time, the Icelandic desire to establish their honourable origins in as irrefutable terms as possible intensified. That reaction was a necessary response to what was perceived as increased Norwegian interest in the island. As submission loomed, the islanders were determined to enter the Norwegian realm on as equal a footing as they could muster and desired, above all, not to be seen as the ‘suetlanders’ or porridge-eaters depicted in the sagas. The end of the Commonwealth in the late thirteenth century coincided with the apogee of medieval literary output in Iceland. These two phenomena were inseparable from one another and each provided an additional impetus for the definition and redefinition of Icelandic identity. Production of the sagas and landnámabækur continued, and these texts reveal glimpses of how their respective compilers sought to adjust to their new reality and the place of Norway in that reality. The situation that had prompted two hundred years of increasingly vehement assertions of common ancestry, dignity and status across a range of literary genres had been formally neutralized. The island’s historical relationship with Norway and the integrity of its autonomous existence had been self-consciously asserted, but now, in spite of all that, Icelanders and Norwegians were both the subjects of the same king. This once again redefined the Icelanders’ status relative to Norway. Ironically it may be the case that, once under the rule of a Norwegian king, the Icelanders finally gained the guarantee of status and security of identity they had always desired.

13 14

Whaley, ‘A Useful Past,’ p. 175. Vance Smith, ‘Irregular Histories,’ p. 162.

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Electronic Resources

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Index Adalbert, Archbishop of HamburgBremen 146, 165, 174 Adam of Bremen 59, 89, 146, 148–149 Ágrip af Nóregskonunga sǫgum 51, 58, 60, 87, 88, 89, 104, 176–177, 178 relationship with other Norwegian histories 87–89 Ailnoth 135–136 Álfífa [Ælfgifu] 178, 188 allsherjargoði 127 Alþingi 9, 10, 11, 34, 52, 73, 114, 119, 120, 121, 122, 126–127, 129, 133, 134, 142, 143, 147, 152, 153, 162, 163, 164, 194, 202, 209 Andersson, Theodore M. 16, 56, 193 Ari Þorgilsson 4, 34–35, 36, 41–42, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 67–77, 83, 88, 90, 93, 103, 104, 105–106, 115, 116, 118, 119–124, 125–140, 142, 143–153, 157, 158, 168, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 208, 211–212, 237, 247–249, 250; see also Íslendingabók Arnold, Martin 20, 110 Assmann, Jan 25–30, 33, 35, 37, 39–41, 63, 72, 97 Auðr Ketilsdóttir (landnámskona) 69, 70, 71, 84–85, 133, 138 Auðunn vestfirzki (Icelander abroad) 198, 234 Baldur Þórhallsson 163, 165, 191, 202 Barraclough, Eleanor Rosamond 30 Berg-Ǫnundr Þorgeirsson (retainer of Eiríkr blóðøx) 228 Bergen 200 Bergþórr Hrafnsson (lawspeaker) 115 Beyschlag, Siegfried 87 Bjarkeyjarréttr (Bjarkey Code) 185, 190, 217 Bjarnar saga Hitdælakappa 215, 218–219 Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson 88 Bjǫrn buna Grímsson (Norwegian hersir)  85, 98, 128, 138, 140, 150 Bjǫrn Ketilsson (landnámsmaðr) 107, 138, 199 Björn M. Ólsen 119, 171 Bogi Th. Melsteð 114, 162, 183, 206 bookprose theory 16–17 bóndi, pl. bændr 11, 13, 174, 185

stórbændr 49 Boulhosa, Patricia Pires 20, 166, 168, 182–183, 189, 191 Bourdieu, Pierre 38, 40 Brandr ǫrvi Vermundarson (Icelander abroad) 234, 235, 238, 242 Brennu-Njáls saga 142, 214 Brodd-Helgi Þorgilsson (goði in Vápnfirðinga saga) 218, 219 Byock, Jesse L. 19, 30, 117 Callow, Chris 30, 213–215 Catalogus Regum Norwagiensium 60 Clanchy, Michael T. 14 Clunies Ross, Margaret 42–43, 47, 232, 253 Codex Rantzovianus 131, 132 cultural capital 37–40, 46, 202, 232 cultural cringe 47 Durrenberger, E. Paul 19, 34 Egill Kolsson (hosts austmenn in Brennu-Njáls saga) 216 Egill Skalla-Grímsson (skald, Icelander abroad) 223, 228; see also Egils saga Egils saga Skalla-Grímssonar 38–39, 56, 89, 106, 213, 222–224, 227, 229 Einarr Eyjólfsson (brother of Guðmundr of Mǫðruvellir) 195, 196 Eiríkr blóðøx (King of Norway) 223, 224 Eiríkr Þorvaldsson (landnámsmaðr) 99–100 Ekrem, Inger 58, 176 Ellehøj, Svend 88 ethnogenesis 64, 204–207 Eyjólfr Guðmundarson (retainer of Óláfr Haraldsson) 181 Eyjólfr Ingjaldsson (hosts an austmaðr in Víga-Glúms saga, Icelander abroad) 220–222 Eyrbyggja saga 70, 84, 107 Eyvindr Bjarnarson 70, 212 Faeroe Islands 70, 82, 90, 91, 92, 197 Fagrskinna 57, 136, 175, 198, 231; see also konungasögur

Index fimtardómr (Fifth Court) 9, 121 First Grammarian 208 Flóki Vilgerðarson (early traveller to Iceland) 72, 82, 90–92 Foote, Peter 3 fornaldarsögur 48, 97, 255 Fóstbræðra saga 180 freeprose theory 16–17 Garðarr Svávarsson (early traveller to Iceland) 72, 82, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93–94, 159 Geirmundr (austmaðr in Laxdæla saga) 221–222 Geirmundr heljarskinn (landnámsmaðr) 83, 242, 249 Gesta Swenomagni regis 135; see also Ailnoth Ghosh, Shami 20, 45 Gísla saga Súrssonar 215 Gísli Sigurðsson 30 Gizurr Ísleifsson (Bishop of Skálholt) 52, 115, 165, 168–169, 173, 174 highly praised 236–238 Gizurr hvíti Teitsson (early convert and goði) 142–144, 146–147, 150, 151, 174, 237 goði, pl. goðar 10, 11–13, 14, 36, 106, 118, 127, 143, 149, 155, 163, 165, 174, 194, 199, 200–202, 216, 217, 218, 220, 230, 238, 243, 250, 254; see also individuals listed by name as goði throughout index goðorð 11, 12, 84, 85, 127, 163, 165, 201 Goffart Walter 65 Greenland 89, 99, 230, 234 Grettis saga Ásmundarsonar 213, 227 Grímsey 162, 164, 175, 192–196; see also Heimskringla Guðmundr Eyjólfsson (goði and retainer of Óláfr Haraldsson) 181, 195 Gulaþing (law province in western Norway) 110, 123, 125, 130 Gulaþingslög (law of the Gulaþing) 123, 125, 126, 127, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 168, 185, 190; see also Icelandic law Gunnlaugr Leifsson 49 Gunnlaugr ormstunga (skald, Icelander abroad) 224, 232, 241 Hafliði (Icelandic merchant in Grettis saga) 213 Hafliði Másson 115, 151

293 Hafliðaskrá 116, 132, 151, 164 Hafrsfjord, Battle of 107 Hákon góði (King of Norway) 130, 136, 137, 188 Hákon Hákonarson (King of Norway) 2, 57, 80, 196, 230 Halbwachs, Maurice 24–26, 28, 31, 35, 36 Hálfdan svarti (King of Norway) 60, 136, 137, 156 Halldórr Snorrason (Icelander abroad) 226– 227, 229, 241 Hallfreðr vandræðaskáld Óttarsson (skald, Icelander abroad) 225, 232 Hallfreðar saga 225 Hallr Þorsteinsson (early convert)  143, 150 Haraldr gráfeldr (King of Norway) 145 Haraldr harðráði (King of Norway) 102, 170, 174, 187, 198, 226, 227, 229, 231–238, 240, 242 friend of the Icelanders 232, 242 charity towards Icelanders 170, 187, 198, 232 bested by Icelanders 233–235 Haraldr hárfagri (King of Norway) 1, 50, 60, 63, 67, 68–69, 82, 83, 89, 92, 93, 101–103, 104, 106, 108, 110, 111, 130, 136, 137, 145, 150, 158, 159, 172, 178, 185, 199, 223, 224, 252 as ‘figure of memory’ 67 as opposite of Ingólfr 101–102 as unifier of Norway 102, 104 provenance of hárfagri 102–103 in literary tradition 102–109 absence from Íslendingabók 105 ofríki Haralds 106–108, 130, 178, 222, 223 friendship with landnámsmenn 108 as arbitrator in Icelandic land dispute 108–110 denial of the right of óðal 106, 110, 184–185, 186 Hastrup, Kirsten 19, 114–115, 206 Haukdælir 12, 14, 50, 74, 75, 116, 123, 142, 148, 151, 169–171, 174–175, 237, 243 Haukr Erlendsson (lǫgmaðr, historian, sheriff, knight) 45, 46, 54, 82, 83, 90, 93, 97, 109–111, 140, 159, 160, 212, 248, 250, 255; see also Hauksbók

294 Heimskringla 36, 51, 56, 57, 58, 130–131, 137, 144, 145, 150, 162, 175, 188, 192, 193, 195–197, 207, 213, 231, 232 authorship 57, 193, 231; see also Snorri Sturluson treatment of hostage-taking in 144 association of Norwegian king with violence in 145–146 indirect reference to Ólafslög in 175 description of Norwegian general levy in 188–189 treatment of external threat to Iceland 192 account of Grímsey request 162, 193–197 lacks anti-Norwegian sentiment of Morkinskinna 193, 231 lack of overtly Icelandic elements 231 focus on military prowess of Haraldr harðráði 232 Helgi magri Eyvindarson (landnámsmaðr) 69–71, 109, 133, 138, 139, 212 Helgi bjóla Ketilsson (landnámsmaðr) 128, 138 Helgi Þorláksson 19, 93–94 Hermann, Pernille 29, 72 hersir, pl. hersar 83, 98, 138 Heusler, Andreas 16, 114 Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium  32, 58, 59, 60, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 104, 176, 177; see also Theodoricus monachus Historia Norwegie 32, 58, 59, 60, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 98, 99, 100, 101, 176, 177, 178, 181, 185, 227 Hjalti Skeggjason (early convert, royal emissary) 142–143, 144, 146–147, 150, 172, 207–208, 232 Hjǫrleifr [Leifr] Hrómundarson 89, 90, 94, 98–100, 139 Hlaðir [Lade], earls of 103 Hólar, bishopric of 13, 49, 52 Horðaland [Hordaland] 101, 125 Hrafn (austmaðr in Vápnfirðinga saga) 218–219 Hrafn Hængsson (lawspeaker) 137 Hrafnkels saga freysgoða 86, 238 Hrappr Bjarnarson 138 Hreiðarr (austmaðr in Víga-Glúms saga) 220–222

Index Hreiðarr Þorgrímsson (Icelander abroad) 233 Hrollaugr Rǫgnvaldsson (landnámsmaðr, friend of Haraldr hárfagri) 69–70, 107, 150 Hrómundr Gripsson 70, 95–96, 100–101 Hrómundar saga 95 Hrómundar þáttr halta 215 Hungrvaka 61, 74, 75, 174, 236–237, 238; see also Haukdælir Hænsa-Þóris saga 215–216 hǫldr [holdar] 184–185 hǫldsréttr 184, 185, 186, 190–191 Iceland, Commonwealth of Iceland, Free State, conversion of 6, 8, 13, 36, 73–74, 77, 90, 119, 120–121, 123, 142–153, 158, 169, 174, 175, 176, 212, 244 political, constitutional development of 9–14, 51–52, 77, 114, 120–121, 163, 173 Norwegian origins of law 77, 110, 152; see also Icelandic law Iceland-Norway relationship 1–8, 19–21, 34, 37, 38–39, 42, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 63, 67, 71, 75, 76, 77, 78, 92, 101, 105, 108, 111, 116, 119, 120, 130, 131, 143, 151, 152, 156, 157, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 170, 173, 177–178, 181, 182, 185, 191-193, 196, 197, 201–204, 206, 207, 209, 210, 211, 215, 219, 222, 225, 230, 239, 242, 244–256 literary claims to Norwegian ancestry and consanguinity 13, 14–15, 65, 66, 69–70, 71, 73, 75–77, 81–82, 86, 101, 105–106, 111, 227, 245, 248–251 Norwegian ancestry and links as symbolic capital 46, 69, 104, 106, 111–112, 151, 255 negotiation of relationship through history-writing 45–46, 77, 82–83, 86, 92, 105–107, 112, 244–256 stereotyping of inhabitants of each 47, 209, 211, 214, 240, 252–253 Icelandic view of Norwegian kings 4, 58, 96, 101–102, 105, 109–110, 245, 251, 254 Icelandic submission to Norwegian king 2, 6, 7, 12, 20, 114, 156, 157, 167, 168, 181, 196, 202, 244, 252, 255, 256 early Norwegian interest in Iceland  158–160

Index right of the Norwegian king to selfsummon cases 179–181 rights of Norwegians in Iceland to same law 182–183 Norwegian inheritance rights in Iceland 159, 183 trade and economic relationship between 57, 189, 190, 196, 197–201, 202, 217, 230–231, 250, 254 Óláfr Haraldsson acknowledges distinction between 204 Norwegians in Iceland 211–215 depiction of in Icelandic literature 213–222 Icelandic hospitality towards Norwegians 220–221 acceptance into Icelandic society 220–222 exaggeration of identity abroad 214 Icelanders, as defined by this study 3–4 abroad 8, 47, 58, 133, 149, 163, 199, 200, 206, 213, 214, 225, 236, 241, 250, 253, 254, 255 as historical sources and informants 32, 35, 36, 90, 91, 100, 122, 171, 173, 231, 232 rights of in Norway 160, 167, 186, 190, 250; see also Bjarkeyjarréttr, Ólafslög noble Icelanders representing island´s interests abroad 163; see also lögretta Ari´s use of term landsmenn to denote inhabitants of new society 208 inherent suggestion of authority of the Alþingi 209 Icelandic annals 50, 137 Icelandic Church 13, 14, 52, 54, 73, 74, 116, 122, 150, 151, 169, 178 cooperation with secular authorities  115–116, 119, 174, involvement with history-writing 13–15, 35, 61, 74, 75, 174, 236, 237; see also Hungrvaka bishops 9, 14, 52, 69, 71, 74, 75, 115, 119, 133, 150, 165, 169, 174, 212, 236, 237; see also individual bishops listed by name throughout index early churches 13, 98, 128, 199 lack of corporate identity 74 Icelandic identity, claims to Norwegian ancestry and

295 consanguinity 7, 13, 15, 69, 71, 81, 82, 85, 96, 101, 106, 111, 141, 151, 227, 245, 248, 251, 252, 255, 256 desire to refute slurs about origins 39, 66, 96–101, 140–141, 185, 209, 247, 256 historical consciousness 46, 106, 245, 247 status anxiety 8, 47, 122, 141, 227–229, 235–236, 247, 249, 255 ‘the worst of peoples’ 221 attitude to Icelandic goods 229 asserted at Norwegian kings’ court 223, 231, 232, 236, 241, 243, 250, 253 assertion outside of Iceland 206, 214, 225 constitutional difference and expression of 10, 222, 240, 242–243, 250 Icelandic law, Úlfljótslög 9, 123, 132, 136, 152, 164 three legal articles of 118 Tíundarlög (Tithe Law) 13, 115, 121, 167, 169 Grágás 16, 117, 132, 156, 157, 167, 169, 206, 207, 228 Norwegian law as basis for 110, 113, 117, 124, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 153, 168 legal mythology and Íslendingabók 113, 115, 116, 118–141 relationship to Gulaþingslög  123, 127, 130, 131, 132, 135; see also Gulaþingslög Konungsbók (Codex Regius ms of Grágás) 117, 156, 167, 169, 171, 179, 197 Hafliðaskrá 116, 132, 151, 164 need for single law-code 9, 73, 129, 155 Staðarhólsbók 117, 167 Icelandic literary elite 3, 4, 40–41, 42, 47, 79, 96, 97, 141, 246, 251 as memory specialists 39–42, 45, 46, 47, 62, 63, 65, 67, 79, 84, 92, 97, 246, 249, 253 Ari establishes ‘figures of memory’  36, 53, 67, 68, 111, 120, 138, 140, 249 as generators of cultural capital  37–40, 46, 232 construction of memory around ‘paradigms of exemplarity’ 8, 45, 89, 101, 250, 251 at Norwegian kings’ court 232

296 Icelandic school 17 Ingimundr gamli Þorsteinsson (landámsmaðr, friend of Haraldr hárfagri) 107, 198, 199, 223, 224 Ingjaldr Helgason (host to an austmaðr in Víga-Glúms saga) 220, 221 Ingólfr Arnarson (landnámsmaðr) 65, 67, 68–70, 83, 85, 89, 90–91, 92–97, 98, 99–101, 105, 109, 111, 120, 126–129, 131, 133, 138, 139, 181, 249, 250 settlement myth of 92–101 genealogy of 95–97, 100–101 as paradigm of exemplarity 101–102, 250 as opposite to Haraldr hárfagri 101–102 association with Kjalarnes assembly 126–127 as ‘figure of memory’ 67, 92, 97 Ísleifr Gizurarson (Bishop of Skálholt) 143, 150, 151, 165, 170, 174, 235 Íslendingabók 5, 10, 29, 34, 35, 36, 49, 51, 53, 56, 61, 67, 68, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 86, 87, 88, 90, 103, 104, 105, 111, 113, 115–123, 127, 130, 134, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 144, 146, 148, 150, 151, 152, 157, 171, 173, 174, 176, 187, 208, 211, 237, 238, 247, 248, 249 account of landnám in 67–77 stress on Norwegian origins in 69–71, 73, 75–77, 111, 152, 247–249 account of Iceland’s conversion 119, 120–123, 143–148, 150, 152, 153, 158, 175 Norwegian stimulus for conversion 143–148 Ari’s intentions in composition of 75–77, 105, 249 textual advisors 75, 119, 174 ‘figures of memory’ 36, 53, 67, 68, 111, 120, 138, 140; see also ‘­figures of memory’ under memory and Icelandic legal mythology 113–141 codification of Icelandic laws 115–116, 119–141 elevation of certain families over others 122 adoption of oral laws from Norway  123–141 suppression of non-Norse elements 128

Index interconnection of significant Icelandic events 150 lack of reference to Ólafslög 173–175 Íslendingasögur (sagas of Icelanders) 4, 8, 16–18, 30, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 48–49, 55, 56, 63, 76, 86, 87, 89, 105, 108, 111, 121, 128, 130, 138, 140, 157, 158, 161, 178, 180, 184, 201, 204, 210, 211, 212, 213–216, 218, 220, 222–224, 229, 230, 236, 239, 240, 246, 249, 252, 253, 255; see also individual sagas listed by name throughout index Ívarr (brother of Hreiðarr, austmaðr in VígaGlúms saga) 221 Jakob Benediktsson 54, 118, 130 Jesch, Judith 30 Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson 118, 146 Jón Jóhannesson 110, 118, 166, 186, 191 Jón Sigurðsson 114, 162, 171, 176 Jón Vidar Sigurdsson 11, 12, 19, 55 Jónsbók 110, 167 Ketilbjǫrn Ketilsson (landnámsmaðr) 69, 133, 139, 150 Ketill flatnefr Bjarnarson 70, 128, 138 Ketill Þorsteinsson (Bishop of Hólar) 52, 115, 174 Kjalarnes 97–98 assembly 98, 126–129, 131, 133, 138, 152 Kjalnesinga saga 86 Kjartan Óláfsson (Icelander abroad) 222, 224, 225, 228–229 Kolskeggr Ásbjarnarson 54, 77, 93 konungasögur 4, 8, 20, 45, 48–49, 51, 55, 56, 61, 131, 175, 192, 204, 210, 230, 231, 236, 237, 242, 246, 254, 255; see also Fagrskinna, Heimskringla and Morkinskinna konunga ævi 50–52, 58, 60, 75, 88 Konungs skuggsjá (The King’s Mirror) 216, 217 Kormáks saga 108, 224 Krag, Claus 103 Kristni saga 142, 150, 158, 238 Laithlinn 103 landaurar (land-dues) 69, 105, 110, 171–175, 177, 178, 186, 187, 191, 200

Index landnám 15, 28, 51, 53, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 113, 115, 120, 127, 128, 130, 133, 138, 140, 148, 159, 206, 212, 213, 223, 242, 244, 250 in sagas 86–87 non-Norwegian settlers 124 in Norwegian histories 87–92 Landnámabók, pl. landnámabækur 4, 8, 13, 29, 30, 36, 39, 49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 61, 63, 67, 70, 77–87, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 104, 105, 107, 108, 116, 118, 119, 121, 123, 124, 125, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 133, 138, 139, 140, 141, 151, 153, 158, 159, 160, 178, 211, 212, 242, 246, 248, 249, 250, 252, 255, 256 Styrmisbók 53, 54, 66, 84, 99, 140; see also Styrmir Kárason Sturlubók 53, 54, 55, 80, 82, 91, 92, 93, 94, 99, 106, 138, 212, 250; see also Sturla Þórðarson Hauksbók 53, 54, 82, 83, 91, 92, 93, 108, 109, 118, 139, 158, 159, 212, 248, 250; see also Haukr Erlendsson Melábok 53, 78, 106, 127, 128 Skarðsárbók 53 Þórðarbók 53, 127 motivation for composition of 54, 55, 78, 79, 80 treatment of Norway in 78, 81, 82, 86, 93–95, 105 treatment of Norwegian king in  105–111 landnám as Norwegian enterprise 81–83, 93–95, 98, 111, 159 landnámsmaðr, pl. landnámsmenn 71, 73, 75, 77, 92, 107, 109, 110, 113, 121, 124, 130, 133, 139, 143, 150, 152, 153, 158, 213, 222, 227, 243, 246, 248, 249; see also individuals listed by name as landnámsmaðr throughout index landnámsöld 9, 36, 111, 149, 158 landsmenn 208, 209 landvættir 73 Lange, Gudrun 88 lawspeaker 11, 14, 68, 115, 116, 121, 133, 137, 142, 147–148, 165, 166; see also individuals

297 listed by name as lawspeaker throughout index Laxdæla saga 161, 189, 214, 215, 224, 227–229 Lindow, John 30, 76 lögrétta (Law Council) 9, 11, 116, 163, 164, 165 lögsögumaðr; see lawspeaker MacDonald, Aidan 72 Magnús berfœttr (King of Norway) 104, 231 Magnús góði (King of Norway) 188, 189, 231, 233, 235 Magnús lagabætir (King of Norway) 126 Markús Skeggjason (lawspeaker) 115, 168 Maurer, Konrad 114, 118–119, 162, 192 memorability 39–45, 67, 89, 97, 99, 112, 123, 131, 138, 140, 159, 249 and narrative 5, 6, 7, 23, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42, 43, 44, 53, 61, 65, 67, 83, 85, 89, 92, 97, 99, 101–102, 112, 123, 138, 140, 161, 239, 246, 249, 256 memory, communicative memory 26, 29, 35, 39 communal memory 35, 210, 239 cultural memory 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 62, 63, 66, 67, 68, 73, 75, 76, 80, 89, 112, 161, 210, 244, 245, 246, 250; see also Assmann ‘figures of memory’ 27, 249 narrative and 33, 36, 53, 67, 68, 111, 120, 138, 140, 249–250 genealogies and 66 individual memory 35 ‘lived memory’ 31–33, 35–36, 76 social memory 23, 29, 30, 34–36 memory studies 22–31 and identity 61 modes of remembering 25, 61, 246 memory specialists 26, 39–42, 45, 46, 47, 62, 63, 65, 67, 79, 84, 92, 97, 246, 249, 253, 254, 255 as generators of cultural capital 37, 38, 39, 40, 46, 202, 232 Meulengracht Sørensen, Preben 19, 31 Miller, William Ian 19, 117 mnemohistory 28

298 Morkinskinna 56, 57, 175, 193, 204, 230–233, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242 pro-Icelandic bias of 57, 231 use of þættir 57, 204, 231, 232, 233 depiction of resourceful Icelanders abroad 233–236 does not refer to Ólafslög 175 Icelanders and Norwegian kings in 230–236 depiction of Norwegian kings’ court in 232 positive portrayal of kingship 232 Mundal, Else 30, 74 myth 63–64 as remembered history 27–28 of origins or foundation narrative 27–28, 30, 36, 63, 65, 85, 112, 119, 138, 140, 153 mythogenesis 97 mythomoteur 34, 68 mythomotorics 27, 41 Naddoddr (early traveller to Iceland) 72, 82, 90, 92 Náttfari 93, 94, 97 Nidaros 58, 59, 176, 178, 200, 228 Njörður Njarðvík 94 Norwegian, designation of identity, maðr nórœnn 69, 207 norrœnn [nórœnn] 70, 71, 207, 212 norðmann 71; see also Ohthere maðr austrænn 133 austmaðr, pl. austmenn 133, 201, 212, 213, 215, 216, 219, 220; see also individuals listed by name as austmaðr throughout index kaupmaðr 213, 217 stýrimaðr 213, 217 types in Icelandic literature 214–219 law-codes, Gulaþingslög 123–127, 130–136, 168, 185, 190; see also ‘Icelandic legal mythology’ under Íslendingabók Frostaþingslög 125–126, 130 ‘Law of the Realm’, standardized 126 Norwegian law provinces, Gulaþing 110, 123, 125, 134 Frostaþing 125 Borgarþing 125 Eiðsivaþing 125

Index Norwegian kings, role in Iceland´s conversion 6, 90, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 153, 158, 169, 176, 224–225 view of in Heimskringla 57, 130–131, 145–146, 193–194, 196, 197 expansionism 83, 104, 107, 161–162, 193–194, 196, 224, 231 negative depiction of 106–108 positive depiction of 107, 199, 223–224 association of with violence  145–146 mediator in Icelandic affairs 108–109 ultimate arbiters of Norwegian law 110 influence, perhaps by means of coercion, on Icelandic affairs 6, 146, 158, 161–162, 193–194 engagement during landnám  82, 159 attempt to exert control over landnám 171–172 right to self-summon cases in Iceland 179–181 ambitions vis-à-vis Iceland 194 Icelandic attitudes to 225, 241, 250, 252 ‘bested’ by Icelanders 233–235, 241–243, 250, 253, 254 taking Icelandic hostages 144, 146, 164 travel bans and trade embargoes 161, 164, 171, 189, 196, 198, 230, 232; see also Ólafslög see also individual Norwegian monarchs listed by name throughout index óðal 106, 110, 184–186 Oddaverjar 12, 50, 141, 243 Oddr Snorrason 58, 88, 142, 144 Ohthere 71, 102 Ólafslög (law of Óláfr inn helgi Haraldsson) 49, 131, 156–203, 207, 232, 250–251 control of trade with Iceland 161, 189, 196–201 negotiation and ratification of  163–165

299

Index preservation of 165–170 preservation within Grágás 167, 169 delay between negotiation of and preservation 165–166, 170 right of the Norwegian king to selfsummon cases 179–181 contemporary references to 170–178 legal rights of Norwegians in Iceland  182–183 Norwegian inheritance rights in Iceland 183–184 legal status of Icelanders in Norway  184–185 partial precursor to obligations following Icelandic submission 196 Icelandic obligations according to  186–189 landaurar 187–188 military service 188–189 type of Icelander favoured 187–189 travel 161, 189 provision of military shelter 192–197 provision of economic shelter 197–201 Óláfr helgi Haraldsson (King of Norway)  5, 6, 104, 131, 136, 146, 150, 151, 156, 161, 162, 163, 164, 168, 169, 172, 173–174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181, 185, 188, 193–197, 199, 201, 204, 207, 232, 235, 251 insists Icelanders ban heathen practices  6, 162, 168, 194 as evangelizing king 104, 177 as legislator 131, 168 as paradigm of exemplarity 131, 251 as the subject of Hálfdan svarti’s dream 136, 156 use of violence to promote Christianity 146 portrayal of in Heimskringla 146, 193–197 policy re Iceland 156, 161, 180–181, 193–194 taking Icelanders hostage 164 imposes charge on Icelanders entering Norway 172–173 significance of request for Grímsey 175, 193–197 negotiates with Icelanders 176 account of in Historia Norwegie and Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium 176, 177

as rex perpetuus Norvegiae 131, 178 sets Icelanders against each other 180–181 entitlement to prosecute in Iceland 181 restoration of óðal by 185 sent timber to build church at Þingvellir 199 gift-giving 201, 235 acknowledges distinctiveness of ­Icelanders 204; see also Ólafslög Ólafs saga helga (Heimskringla) 161, 172, 193 Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar (Oddr Snorrason)  88, 142 Ólafs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta 142 Óláfr Tryggvason (King of Norway) 6, 49, 50, 60, 90, 104, 142, 143, 145–151, 158, 174, 176, 177, 188, 224–225 role in conversion of Iceland 6, 90, 143, 143–148, 149, 158, 176, 224–225 baptism of 145 as evangelizing king 60, 104, 142, 148, 224 ‘conversion of Iceland by force’ 144–146 taking Icelanders hostage 144, 146 charge of heterodoxy against 149 depiction of by Ari 146, 148–149 related to Gizurr inn hvíti 150, 174 control over Kjartan Ólafsson  224–225 Oldest Saga of Saint Olaf 88 Olsen, Olaf 118 oral tradition 31, 35, 38, 63, 80, 91, 97, 246 orality and literacy 14–17, 23–24, 35 in the work of Jan Assmann 29 Orkneys 59, 70, 90, 162, 187, 197 Orning, Hans Jacob 56, 210 Orri Vésteinsson 74, 148 papar 72, 73, 74, 81, 91, 94, 149, 153 Partner, Nancy 45 Poetic Edda 255 Pohl, Walter 64 Prose Edda 38–39, 76 Quarter Courts ( fjórðungsdómar) 9–10, 85 Quarter Division 9–10, 52, 69, 84, 118, 121, 144, 163, 165, 166

300 Ragnarr loðbrók 68 Reykdæla saga og Víga-Skútu 93, 219, 236 riddarasögur 48 Rigney, Ann 25, 27, 31, 43–44 Roskilde Chronicle 135 runestones 71, 94 samtiðarsögur 55–56, 211, 214, 215 Shetland 90, 187, 229 Sigurðr Jórsalafari (King of Norway) 60 Sigurðr sýr (petty king) 227, 233 Sigurður Nordal 110, 138 Simmel, Georg 220 Skálholt, bishopric of 13, 14, 49, 52, 236–237 Skapti Þóroddsson (lawspeaker) 166 skatt 196 skattgjafir 196 skattland, pl. skattlǫnd 21, 155, 181 Skúli Bárðarson (earl and duke) 230 Smith, Anthony D. 34, 68 Smith, D. Vance 255 Sneglu-Halli (skald, Icelander abroad) 235, 241 Snorri Sturluson (goði, historian, lawman, retainer, skald) 38, 39, 41–42, 45–46, 57, 76, 80, 193, 196, 230, 250 possible authorship of Heimskringla 57, 193 Snorri Þorgrímsson (goði) 226–227 Steblin-Kamenskij, M.I. 18 Stefnir Þorgilsson (early missionary) 147, 150 Sturla Þórðarson (goði, historian, lawman, retainer, skald) 41–42, 45–46, 54, 80, 81, 84, 85, 97, 99, 107, 138, 140, 212, 250 Sturlungar 12, 14, 85, 141 Sturlungaöld 12 Sturlunga saga 43 Styrmir Kárason 53, 54, 99 Svarfdæla saga 86 Sveinbjörn Rafnsson 105 Sveinn Alfífuson [Knútsson] (King of ­Norway) 172, 178, 188, 189, 234, 236 Sverrir Jakobsson 220 Sverrir Sigurðarson (King of Norway) 60, 96 syncretic truth 18 Sæmundr Sigfússon 50, 51, 52, 58, 60, 75, 88, 115, 150, 174

Index Teitr Gizurarson 168 Teitr Ísleifsson 69, 123, 143 Theodoricus monachus 32, 59–60, 88, 90, 91, 92, 100–101, 177, 231; see also Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium identity of 59 sources used by 60, 88, 90–91, 177 Thomas, R. George 43 Thule 89, 91 Torfi H. Tulinius 38–39 Traditionskern 64–65 Tryggvi Ólafsson (claimant to Norwegian throne) 188–189 Úlfljótr 120, 123, 131–140, 150, 212; see also Úlfljótslög Uni Garðarsson 82–83, 159–160 Urbańczyk, Przemysław 94 Vápnfirðinga saga 218 Vatnsdæla saga 108, 215, 223–224, 225, 252 várþingsdómar 9 Vésteinn Ólason 33 Víga-Glúms saga 220–221 Víglundar saga 221 Vilhjálmur Finsen 114 vingjafir 194, 224 Wanner, Kevin J. 38–39 Wærdahl, Randi Bjørshol 14, 21 Weber, Gerd Wolfgang 147 Wenskus, Reinhard 64, 65 Whaley, Diana 45–46 White, Hayden 44 William of Malmesbury 102 Ynglinga saga 76 Ynglingatal 105 þáttr, pl. þaettir 55, 57, 204, 209–210, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 236, 238, 239, 240; see also Morkinskinna Þangbrandr 142, 143, 147 þingmaðr, pl. þingmenn 11, 36, 155, 202 Þingvellir 9, 199; see also Alþingi Þórarinn Nefjólfsson (Icelandic merchant, royal emissary) 194, 213

Index Þórðar saga hreðu 215 Þórðr skeggi Hrappsson 128, 138, 139, 150 Þorgeirr Þorkelsson (lawspeaker) 143, 147, 148 Þórgrímr (austmaðr in Brennu-Njáls saga)  216 Þórir (austmaðr in Brennu-Njáls saga) 216 Þorlákr Runólfsson (Bishop of Skálholt) 52, 115, 174 Þorleifr inn spaki Hǫrða-Kárasonar 120, 123, 130–131, 134–137, 138, 139, 140, 151 Þorkell Eyjólfsson (goði) 194, 228 Þórnýju Ingólfsdóttir 128 Þórólfr mostrarskeggi Ǫrnólfsson (landnámsmaðr) 85, 107, 199, 249–250 Þórsnes assembly 85, 152

301 Þorsteinn Ingólfsson 126, 127, 128, 133, 138 Þorsteins þáttr uxafóts 118, 215 Æthelred [Ethelred] (King of England) 145, 193, 224 Æthelstan [Athelstan] (King of England)  102, 130, 145, 223 Örlygr [Ǫrlygr, Ørlygr] Hrappsson (landnámsmaðr) 128, 138, 150, 199 Ǫgmundr Kormáksson (friend of Haraldr hárfagri) 224 Ǫrn (austmaðr in Laxdæla saga) 214, 216 Ǫrn (austmaðr in Hœnsa-Þóris saga) 216 Ǫzurr (Archbishop of Lund) 115