In case Deja becomes unavailable, here are the posts as a single HTML document on my site. They are all from soc.history.what-if. I have done some cleaning up of the layout but not the text. To make it easier to follow who said what, text I wrote is in this color. My comments, added later, are shown in grey, like this.
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/07/2000
Author: Douglas Muir <douglas.muir@yale.edu>
> suggested reading:
>
> http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html
Ah, another David Friedman piece from the 1970s.
As has been pointed out, again and again and again, no serious historian accepts the Friedman view of Icelandic history any more; it was remotely plausible 30 years ago, but is not so today.
For a serious discussion of criminology, it's about as useful as a treatise on phlogiston.
Doug M.
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/08/2000
Author: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
In article <3A301634.A7A1CAB6@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
> > suggested reading:
> >
> > http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html
>
> Ah, another David Friedman piece from the 1970s.
>
> As has been pointed out, again and again and again, no serious historian
> accepts the Friedman view of Icelandic history any more; it was remotely
> plausible 30 years ago, but is not so today.
I have certainly seen this asserted repeatedly, but so far nobody who asserts it, at least in posts I have noted, has provided any evidence.
> For a serious discussion of criminology, it's about as useful as a
> treatise on phlogiston.
It seems a bit odd, if that is the case, that it was one of the reading materials for a scholarly conference on Icelandic law (in Iceland) in 1999--one that included Jesse Byock, possibly the leading Icelandic scholar in the U.S., Sigurdur Lindal, a very distinguished Icelandic scholar (I had the pleasure of being shown around Thingvellir by him a year or so ago), and a variety of others.
The web page for the conference is:
www.hi.is/~hannesgi/verk/legorder.html
It also seems a bit odd that in Birgir T. Runolfsson Solvason's 1991 paper, "ORDERED ANARCHY, STATE, AND RENT-SEEKING: THE ICELANDIC COMMONWEALTH, 930-1262," he is so polite to me (while disagreeing with part of my analysis of the Icelandic system, especially its breakdown). He starts his table of contents with a link to a quote from my article, includes in that a link to the whole article, and somehow never gets around to mentioning that my discussion is as useful as a treatise on phlogiston.
Checking through his article for references to my work, I find
one in which Birgir denies that the Icelandic system was
anarcho-capitalism (a claim I, of course, did not make),
a footnote that reads, in its entirety, "For an interesting and imaginative vision and arguments of such competition, see Friedman (1989)."
"A brief comparison of the Icelandic society, especially in its earlier half, suggests that it was more peaceful and cooperative than its contemporaries. In fact Icelandic society was no more violent than the modern U.S. (Friedman 1979)."
(I think this is one of the claims that Muir denies, or at least that other people who claim my views have been exploded deny--odd to find an Icelandic scholar citing it with approval so recently).
This is actually the second round of attempts to discredit my work on Iceland by assertion.
The first round, which was more entertaining, consisted of people (apparently left anarchists) asserting a mass of invented historical "facts" about Icelandic history and in the process demonstrating a quite striking ignorance of the subject. There was a series of exchanges in which I pointed out some of the most obvious errors and the author(s?) revised the document to remove them. Interested readers can find a sample of the document and my commentary at:
www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/Iceland_Anarch_FAQ1_reply.html
and (a later version)
www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/Iceland_Anarch_FAQ2_reply.html
The second round, which I have noticed a few examples of recently and finally decided I should respond to, consists of posts like Muir's--confident assertions that my views are wrong, with no documentation and no evidence that the poster knows anything at all about the subject.
Since the claim is not merely that my beliefs are wrong but that everyone familiar with the field knows they are wrong, I thought the easiest way of dealing with them was to demonstrate that the latter claim was false. As I have just done.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/10/2000
Author: Douglas Muir <douglas.muir@yale.edu>
David Friedman wrote:
> > Ah, another David Friedman piece from the 1970s.
> >
> > As has been pointed out, again and again and again, no serious historian
> > accepts the Friedman view of Icelandic history any more; it was remotely
> > plausible 30 years ago, but is not so today.
>
> I have certainly seen this asserted repeatedly, but so far nobody who
> asserts it, at least in posts I have noted, has provided any evidence.
Grep deja, please. I've provided several cites already.
> > For a serious discussion of criminology, it's about as useful as a
> > treatise on phlogiston.
>
> It seems a bit odd, if that is the case, that it was one of the reading
> materials for a scholarly conference on Icelandic law (in Iceland) in
> 1999
Ah, one of the Liberty Fund's little get-togethers. -- For those who came in late, the Liberty Fund is a far-right wing group that sponsors conferences and other academic ventures, some reputable, some less so. They run with the "Law and Economics" crowd generally but are perhaps a wee bit further out there.
I see from the websie that the readings for the conference consisted of three excerpts from sagas, Friedman's 1979 piece, and a 1983 article by... bless my soul, it's Richard Posner.
I can't think of any reputable academic gathering where the readings would be limited to primary sources and 20-year-old articles, but perhaps I'm moving in the wrong circles.
> (I think this is one of the claims that Muir denies, or at least that
> other people who claim my views have been exploded deny--odd to find an
> Icelandic scholar citing it with approval so recently).
Odd that you can't come up with more than one, or a stronger cite than this.
If your work was being widely accepted by historians, it would be in textbooks. It isn't.
It would be lighting up the cite-check software, not in the law'n'economics lit, but in journals dealing with Scandinavian history and archeology. It doesn't.
Your articles would be collected, or at least discussed, in compilations on the field (of which there are quite a few, from the International Saga Conferences to the biennial conferences of the Norse Archeologists). They aren't.
One would find at least the occasional cite to your work in respectable compendiums like the _Encyclopedia of Old Norse Studies_. One doesn't.
This strongly suggests that your view is not, at present, the mainstream view. Furthermore, my readings suggest that the scholarly consensus is moving away from you.
> The second round, which I have noticed a few examples of recently and
> finally decided I should respond to, consists of posts like
> Muir's--confident assertions that my views are wrong, with no
> documentation and no evidence that the poster knows anything at all
> about the subject.
Yah, the bits in my posts where I mention the Volsunga Saga and the Story of Burnt Njal, or where I discuss some contemporary controversies in the field (like Byock's assertion that Egil the Skull suffered from Paget's disease), or allude to the various periods in Icelandic history (the Age of Broken Stones, etc.), or where I cite to recent scholarly works from _Northern Antiquity_ to _Sagas and Society_, are definitely not evidence that I know anything at all about the subject.
[later in the thread he concedes that there were no such posts, merely messages to an email listserve--which, of course, I had no way of seeing]
Doug M.
From: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 09 Dec 2000 00:00:00 GMT
In article <3A330CF8.5313DC8B@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
(offered as evidence that my views on saga period Iceland are utterly exploded):
> Your articles would be collected, or at least discussed, in compilations
> on
> the field (of which there are quite a few, from the International Saga
> Conferences to the biennial conferences of the Norse Archeologists).
> They aren't.
"articles?" "they?" I wrote one article on the subject more than twenty
years ago. It's hard to "collect" one article.
> This strongly suggests that your view is not, at present, the mainstream
> view.
Certainly possible--but you were making a considerably stronger claim
than that.
(about the conference I had mentioned)
> I can't think of any reputable academic gathering where the readings
> would be
> limited to primary sources and 20-year-old articles, but perhaps I'm
> moving in the wrong circles.
Oddly enough, making sense of the legal institutions of saga period Iceland from the standpoint of modern legal theory is not a project that has engaged large numbers of people or produced a voluminous literature. I started it with my article, William Miller continued it (from a very different political perspective) with several articles and a book, and Posner has touched on it in passing. That plus a little work by a couple of Icelanders is about it. It would certainly be nice if articles on the subject were coming out every six months, but I'm afraid it isn't happening.
> > The second round, which I have noticed a few examples of recently and
> > finally decided I should respond to, consists of posts like
> > Muir's--confident assertions that my views are wrong, with no
> > documentation and no evidence that the poster knows anything at all
> > about the subject.
> Yah, the bits in my posts where I mention the Volsunga Saga and the Story
> of Burnt Njal,
> or where I discuss some contemporary controversies in the field
> (like Byock's assertion that Egil the Skull suffered from Paget's
> disease), or
> allude to the various periods in Icelandic history (the Age of Broken
> Stones,
> etc.), or where I cite to recent scholarly works from _Northern
> Antiquity_ to
> _Sagas and Society_, are definitely not evidence that I know anything at
> all about the subject.
Oddly enough, I havn't been spending my time researching your past postings, at least not until today. The post I responded to, and the one or two others along similar lines (not necessarily by you) that I noticed in the past and did not respond to, provided no evidence of knowledge of the subject.
After reading your post, however, I did a few Deja searches. A Deja search for "Muir Njal" gave me zero hits. Ditto for "Volsung Muir" . A search for "Byock Muir" turned up this post of yours, and my earlier post, and nothing else. I got similar results in searching just on Njal, Volsung, Byock, each time with your email address as "Author."
I suppose it's possible that you made lots of posts showing extensive knowledge of saga period Iceland but they were all before May 15, 1999 (Deja's current limit), or from a different email address and without your last name, or in a newsgroup Deja doesn't index, or for some other reason invisible to my Deja searches. Perhaps you could provide pointers to them?
A search for "Egil Muir" turned up a post of yours from yesterday and nothing else. Similarly for a search for Egil with you as Author.
In that post you asserted that thralls were largely war captives from Icelanders fighting each other. Would you like to cite a passage from the sagas describing that? I can't think of one. There were certainly lots of thralls in the early period who were war captives from elsewhere, in particular Ireland, but Iceland?
You wrote in that post:
"It's right there in the Sagas, for Bog's sake. Also in every single non-saga written record, from Egil to church accounts.
... ...which consisted of "I had more warriors, I snuck up on your steading and burned it one night, you are now my slave. Anyone care to argue with me?"
Egil saga I know pretty well. Where in it does anything like what you have described (taking prisoners in Iceland and making them thralls) happen?
If you have actually read Byock's _Scientific American article_ (but why do you describe Egil Skallagrimsson as Egil the Skull?), and read Njalsaga, you are several steps ahead of the people in the last round. But that still isn't much reason to accept your assertions without evidence. And on what I have seen so far, I have some doubt that you have actually read the stuff--although I will be happy to alter my views after you cite the passage in Egilsaga where people took prisoners in Iceland and enslaved them.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/10/2000
Author: Douglas Muir <douglas.muir@yale.edu>
David Friedman wrote:
> If you have actually read Byock's _Scientific American article_ (but why
> do you describe Egil Skallagrimsson as Egil the Skull?),
Because
1) His skull was deformed, and
2) Byock has focussed interest on his skull, and
3) "Egil Skallagrimsson" is a mouthful
I didn't read his article in SA; I read the one in _Medieval and Renaissance Studies_, which AFAICT covers much the same ground.
> But that still isn't much reason to accept your assertions without evidence.
"O kettle! Thou art black."
> cite the passage in Egilsaga where people took prisoners in
> Iceland and enslaved them.
My bad; it isn't in the Egilsaga. I confused it with a passage about _King_ Egil, in the Ynglingsaga.
"Tunne was the name of a slave who had been the counsellor and treasurer of On the Old; and when On died Tunne took much gold and buried it in the ground. Now when Egil became king he put Tunne among the other slaves, which he took very ill and ran away with others of the slaves. They dug up the treasures which Tunne had concealed, and he gave them to his men, and was made their chief.
"Afterwards many malefactors flocked to him; and they made their camp in the woods, but sometimes fell upon the fields of men, pillaging and killing the people. When King Egil heard this he went out with his forces to pursue them; but one night when he had taken up his night quarters, Tunne came there with his men, fell on the king's men unexpectedly, and killed many of them. As soon as King Egil heard the clash of combat, he prepared for defence, and set up his banner; but many people deserted him, because Tunne and his men attacked them so fiercely, and King Egil saw that there was nothing but to fly. Tunne pursued the fugitives into the forest, and then returned to the inhabited land, ravaging and plundering without resistance. All the goods and captives that fell into Tunne's hands he gave to his people, and he thus became popular and strong in men.
"King Egil assembled an army again, and hastened to give battle to Tunne. But Tunne was victorious a second time, and King Egil fled with the loss of many strong men.
"Egil and Tunne had eight battles with each other, and Tunne always gained the victory. Then King Egil fled out of the country entirely, and went to Sealand in Denmark, to Frode the Bold, and promised him a scot from the Swedes to obtain help. Frode gave him an army, and also his champions. With this force King Egil returned. When Tunne heard this he came out to meet him. Then there was a great battle, in which Tunne fell, and King Egil recovered his kingdom, and the Danes returned home."
Case translation, chapter 30.
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/10/2000
Author: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
In article <3A332F1A.ECE21D83@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> > cite the passage in Egilsaga where people took prisoners in
> > Iceland and enslaved them.
>
> My bad; it isn't in the Egilsaga. I confused it with a passage about
> _King_ Egil, in the Ynglingsaga.
Which describes events in Sweden. Events which occurred, assuming King Egil is historical, some centuries before Iceland was discovered.
You do remember that you were making a claim about Iceland, don't you?
Let's try again. Where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a description of what you claimed to be common--a bunch of armed men attacking someone's house in Iceland, capturing and enslaving the people in it? Or, if you prefer, where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a thrall who became a thrall as a result of such an attack?
Incidentally, the translations I found give the bit that you quote as:
"All the goods and captives that fell into Tunne's hands he gave to his people, and he thus became popular and strong in men."
as
"All the goods that fell into Tunne's hands he gave to his people, and thus became popular and strong in men."
and
"All the goods with Tunni took in that district he gave to his men; ..."
Thus omitting the captives, which seems to be the only bit of the quote that has anything to do with your claim. But I suspect they are both older translations, so yours may be based on a better original.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/10/2000
Author: Douglas Muir <douglas.muir@yale.edu>
David Friedman wrote:
> Which describes events in Sweden.
And you're claiming that Iceland was different from the rest of medieval Scandinavia? More peaceful, more law-abiding, a nicer place to live?
> Thus omitting the captives, which seems to be the only bit of the quote
> that has anything to do with your claim. But I suspect they are both
> older translations, so yours may be based on a better original.
Don't forget Tunne himself. If his thralldom had been driven by debt, he'd have been able to take that mass of buried gold and buy his freedom. Unfortunately, it didn't work that way.
I recalled that particular passage because it's one of several in which a former slave leads a revolt against the established order; this happens often enough in the Sagas to be called a recurring theme (the most extreme case, of course, being Throat-Cutter Kark). At least one scholar has suggested that these were, in fact, slave revolts, and that the "malefactors" who surrounded Tunne, Kark & co. were actually slaves. On one hand, I think this vision of Nordic Spartacuses is a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, it is striking that a former slave could find enough "malefactors" to actually chase a popular king right out of the country.
> Or, if you prefer, where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a thrall who
> became a thrall as a result of such an attack?
Off the top of my head? The bit in the Volsungasaga when Siggeir captures Volsung's sons and puts them in the stocks. He threatens to kill them, but doesn't; they spend a goodly while moping around in chains.
(Of course, six out of seven of them eventually get eaten by a supernatural wolf, and the seventh escapes only to have sex with his sister under an enchantment. But that's the Volsungasaga for you.)
And then there's Sigurd's chat with Fafnir, when the dragon chaffs him for having been a bondsman, taken in battle. IIRC Sigurd angrily replies that though he was captured in battle, he was never chained. So take that, smartass dragon. Of course, Fafnir's coughing blood at that point anyhow.
There are lots and lots of throwaway references in Njal's saga, too. A minute or two of searching came up with these:
Chapter 37:
"He will take it in his hands well enough," she says, "and I will tell thee a thing by token of this, that he has carried away with him to the Thing the price of that thrall which we took last spring. That same money will now pay for Kol; but though peace be made, thou must still be ware and guard thyself, for Hallgerda will not keep any peace."
Or the verses that Kari sings:
"Many fetters Skapti fettered
When the men, the Gods of fight,
From the fray fared all unwilling
Where the skald scarce held his shield;
Then the suttlers dragged the lawyer
Stout in scolding to their booth,
Laid him low amongst the riffraff,
How his heart then quaked for fear."
It's clear from the context that Skapti is actually putting fetters on people; these verses tend to be almost alarmingly literal.
Let me turn it around. If I understand correctly, you're claiming that thralls were _not_ captives taken in battle; that they were, one and all, brought into servitude by debt.
Am I misunderstanding your position? If I am, please tell me. If I'm not, let's see some supporting textevd from the Sagas (or elsewhere... church texts will do just fine).
To make my position clear, I agree that many thralls were debt-slaves; but many of them, a large minority if not a minority, were captives in battle. I'll be happy to come up with more cites for that, but I'd like to see some evidence for the all-thralls-were-debtors position first.
Doug M.
Subject: Re: OT: (was Re: 30,000,000 BC)
Date: 12/10/2000
Author: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
In article <3A33516D.EE02084E@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
>
> > Which describes events in Sweden.
>
> And you're claiming that Iceland was different from the rest of medieval
> Scandinavia? More peaceful, more law-abiding, a nicer place to live?
Of course it was different--as you would know if, as I thought you were claiming, you were familiar with the society and the literature. Among other minor details, there was no king.
Have you read the article of mine whose views you claim to be exploded?
More and more this is reminding me of the first round, where some person or persons thought he could refute my description of the history of Iceland without actually knowing anything about the subject--by deducing what must have been true in Iceland by what he had read about various other places, plus Kropotkin's description of early societies.
As it stands now, you made a very confident assertion about thralldom in Iceland, in the context of a discussion of the legal institutions of Iceland. In that assertion you named a source--Egilsaga. When I asked for the passage, you replied that it wasn't actually in that source, but in another source that described events in another country about four hundred years earlier (you didn't say it was in another country four hundred years earlier--perhaps you didn't even know it was).
> > Or, if you prefer, where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a thrall who
> > became a thrall as a result of such an attack?
> Off the top of my head? The bit in the Volsungasaga when Siggeir captures
> Volsung's sons and puts them in the stocks. He threatens to kill them,
> but doesn't; they spend a goodly while moping around in chains.
I had specified in the earlier part of my post an attack that happened in Iceland. Volsungasaga is an Icelandic rewrite of a German story, as I presume you know--and the events, insofar as they have any historical basis, occurred centuries before Iceland was discovered.
> There are lots and lots of throwaway references in Njal's saga, too. A
> minute
> or two of searching came up with these:
> Chapter 37:
> "He will take it in his hands well enough," she says, "and I will tell
> thee a thing by token of this, that he has carried away with him to the
> Thing
> the price of that thrall which we took last spring. That same money will
> now
> pay for Kol; but though peace be made, thou must still be ware and guard
> thyself, for Hallgerda will not keep any peace."
It is the price, not the thrall, that was taken last spring--as you would know if you had actually read Njalsaga, instead of looking through an old translation in the hopes that you could find something to support your views.
The passage in the Magnusson and Palsson translation reads:
"As an indication, I can tell you that he took with him to the Althing the slave-payment we accepted last summer, and which will now be used to pay for Kol." (p. 103)
Is that clear enough for you?
> Or the verses that Kari sings:
>
> "Many fetters Skapti fettered
> When the men, the Gods of fight,
> From the fray fared all unwilling
> Where the skald scarce held his shield;
> Then the suttlers dragged the lawyer
> Stout in scolding to their booth,
> Laid him low amongst the riffraff,
> How his heart then quaked for fear."
>
> It's clear from the context that Skapti is actually putting fetters on
> people; these verses tend to be almost alarmingly literal.
I gather you don't know much about skaldic poetry either.
Take a look at the same verse in the modern translation (yours is from 1861)
Skapti was easily put off,
And cowered behind his shield,
When others were reluctant
To go out and stop the fighting;
And cooks had to drag
This prone prince of battle
Into some juggler's booth -
It was the plainest cowardice.
(p. 320, Magnusson and Palsson translation, Penguin Classics)
No fetters at all.
I gather you haven't actually read Njalsaga, and don't own a copy, since when you wanted to look for bits that could be interpreted, with a little effort, to fit your claim you went to a webbed translation and then misread that. You might at least have noticed that the passage is one in which Kari is insulting Skapti, not praising him as a successful warrior.
> Let me turn it around. If I understand correctly, you're claiming that
> thralls were _not_ captives taken in battle; that they were, one and all,
> brought into servitude by debt.
I gather you have not read my article, nor even read my posts in this thread very carefully.
Icelandic law provided for debt thralldom. In addition, there were thralls who had been captured outside of Iceland, most commonly in Ireland.
> To make my position clear, I agree that many thralls were debt-slaves; but
> many of them, a large minority if not a minority, were captives in battle.
But your assertion, made with great confidence, was that the Icelanders acquired thralls by warring on each other. Here's the relevant part of your post:
--
> With whom were the Icelanders at war, and when?
Each other, perpetually and constantly. I mean, /duh/, Al. This has been pointed out over and over again to you, with cites. Including articles about the alarming archeological evidence (the terrifying preponderance of bashed-in skulls, nicked and dented armor, burned remains of homesteads, etc., etc.). Not to mention the Sagas. Ever read a Saga? They're some of the world's greatest works of oral history, so they're well worth a look. The Sagas are long... they're bloody... and they're almost all about Icelanders fighting each other.
> Iceland was one society under one government
Wow. You really don't know what you're talking about, do you?
> They didn't have "war captives".
Yes... they... did.
It's right there in the Sagas, for Bog's sake. Also in every single non-saga written record, from Egil to church accounts.
> Internal enemies full under the judicial system,
...which consisted of "I had more warriors, I snuck up on your steading
and burned it one night, you are now my slave. Anyone care to argue
with me?"
> > Or their descendants;
> > the status was hereditary.
>
> Are you speaking of Iceland, or of other Norse societies? My
> understanding is that thralldom was not hereditory in Iceland.
Nope. It was. Again, right there in the Sagas. If you're going to talk about Icelandic history, could you please go out and read some first?
---
So you are making the following set of assertions:
1. Iceland was not one country under one government.
2. Icelanders were constantly fighting each other, taking war captives, and making them into thralls.
3. There was no judicial system--merely brute force.
All three of these claims are utter nonsense--the first and third demonstrate a truly striking historical ignorance. If you had actually read Njalsaga, you might have noticed that large parts of it deal with court cases, taking place under a fairly detailed system of laws and courts. You might at least have noticed that Njal, the man the saga is named after, is distinguished largely as a legal scholar. I conclude that you have simply been blowing smoke--making confident assertions in the belief that you can intimidate people who know even less about the subject than you do. I remain ready to be convinced of the contrary, just as soon as you start demonstrating that you can support your assertions. But first, I suggest you take your own advice and go out and read some Icelandic history before talking about it. You might also try reading the sagas--they really are worth reading. Incidentally, you also posted recently:
> Yah, the bits in my posts where I mention the Volsunga Saga and the Story
> of Burnt Njal, or where I discuss some contemporary controversies in the
> field (like Byock's assertion that Egil the Skull suffered from Paget's
> disease), or allude to the various periods in Icelandic history (the Age
> of Broken Stones, etc.), or where I cite to recent scholarly works from
> _Northern Antiquity_ to _Sagas and Society_, are definitely not evidence
> that I know anything at all about the subject.
I responded, reporting my inability to find any of that stuff using Deja. You never replied. Does that mean that you really hadn't made any such posts, and were simply lying about it, on the assumption I wouldn't check? Or are you still trying to figure out how Deja lost them all. I also notice, in another post of yours in the thread:
> I mean, what would you expect? It was a society founded by outlaws, for
> goodness' sake. Erik the Red was a bloody handed multiple murderer, and
> most of the early settlers were cut from exactly the same cloth.
You seem to be having a little difficulty with geography as well as history. Eric the Red was the discoverer of Greenland, not a founder of Iceland (he arrived in Iceland about eighty years after settlement began). At the point when he discovered Greenland, he had been outlawed in Iceland--outlawed under that legal system which, according to you, didn't exist.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
David Friedman wrote:
> > And you're claiming that Iceland was different from the rest of medieval
> > Scandinavia? More peaceful, more law-abiding, a nicer place to live?
>
> Of course it was different--as you would know if, as I thought you were
> claiming, you were familiar with the society and the literature.
Ah, the ad hominems at last, more's the pity.
> Among
> other minor details, there was no king.
Medieval Iceland was very similar to contemporary societies in Scandinavia and elsewhere in the Norse world; identical language, identical religion, same traditions, same cultural memes. Frex, Iceland's first legal code -- Ulfljot's Laws, which provided for the creation of the Thing -- was brought over from Norway by Ulfljot, and was (the Landnamabok tells us) a lightly adapted crib from Norway's Gula-Thing legal code.
Scandinavia was culturally quite homogeneous, and changed only slowly over time. A Norwegian from the year 1000, say, moved backwards or forwards a century and dropped down in Denmark or Iceland, would find himself almost perfectly at home. So it's not unreasonable to look at, say, ninth century Sweden or tenth century Norway for insights into tenth century Iceland.
No, Iceland didn't have a king. But this isn't all that great a difference, as Norse kings were quite weak during most of this period. They were war chieftains, and some had a religious aspect as well, but even in their military function they were _primus inter pares_, not god-kings or autocrats, and they were hamstrung by the lack of a formal state structure of finance.
The "stateless" aspect of Iceland was not all that unique, either; there was nothing like a state in the modern sense anywhere in Scandinavia until at least the tenth century. It was considered a startling and dangerous innovation when King Harald Fairhair introduced taxation, for instance, instead of paying for his expenses out of his own pocket plus the royal share of loot. Centralization and state formation didn't really get going until the time of Harald Hardrede (who picked up all sorts of ideas from his time in Byzantium). So while Iceland was different, the differences were not all that great IMO.
-- In any event, you've avoided the question. Are you saying that Iceland was _better_ than contemporary Scandinavian societies -- more peaceful, safer, a better place in which to live? And if so, how?
> More and more this is reminding me of the first round, where some person
> or persons thought he could refute my description of the history of
> Iceland without actually knowing anything about the subject--by deducing
> what must have been true in Iceland by what he had read about various
> other places, plus Kropotkin's description of early societies.
I'll freely concede that some of my interpretation of medieval Iceland is based on inference rather than actual knowledge.
On the other hand, when I know that X was standard practice in medieval Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and England, then I think it's reasonable to assume that X was also the norm in Iceland. It's an assumption, not actual knowledge, yes... but it's the sort of assumption that is more likely to be correct than otherwise.
> (you didn't say it was in another country four
> hundred years earlier--perhaps you didn't even know it was).
Again the ad hominems.
-- David, when you posted something that suggested an abysmal ignorance of 19th century Africa, I didn't say, "gosh, I wonder if you know the slightest thing about the Zulu wars." I and several other regular posters politely pointed out the reasons why a Zulu victory was impossible; none of them, you'll notice, suggested that you were writing from gross ignorance of the period (though it would certainly have been a reasonable inference).
I don't assume that I know much more about a given topic than you do; I'd appreciate your extending the same courtesy.
> I had specified in the earlier part of my post an attack that happened
> in Iceland.
"Where in the Icelandic Sagas", you asked. And the Volsunga is certainly that.
I'll freely concede that the Volsungasaga isn't an accurate description of Icelandic society -- medieval Iceland probably didn't really have too many dragons, witches, vengeful gods, and man eating werewolves.
On the other hand, I do think it's relevant, and has things to tell us about medieval Norse society in general; when the Volsungasaga describes a war-band mustering for battle, frex, it's probably an accurate description of how this was accomplished, whether in 8th century Sweden, 9th century Norway, or 10th century Iceland.
[deletia]
> I gather you don't know much about skaldic poetry either.
> I gather you haven't actually read Njalsaga, and don't own a copy,
I have read Njalsaga, thank you; I don't have a copy on hand at the moment, and so must rely on online sources.
> > If I understand correctly, you're claiming that
> > thralls were _not_ captives taken in battle; that they were, one and all,
> > brought into servitude by debt.
> I gather you have not read my article, nor even read my posts in this
> thread very carefully.
Gracious, what a lot of gathering. In fact I have read it, and (as often the case with this sort of piece) found it more interesting for what it doesn't say than for what it does. It doesn't discuss thralldom except for debt thralldom, for instance so it's impossible to tell from reading it whether you believe that debt was the *only* way to become a thrall.
> Icelandic law provided for debt thralldom. In addition, there were
> thralls who had been captured outside of Iceland, most commonly in
> Ireland.
So... let's be clear here... no thralldom by capture in battle?
[big snip]
Ahh, straw man arguments. And a big chunk of post taken out of context. Let's see here.
I concede the following points.
1) No, I am not claiming that Icelanders were constantly fighting each other and taking captives. I can see where you could read my post and think that, so let me make that clear.
2) I further concede that ten minutes with such Sagas as are available online provide no compelling evidence for Icelanders enslaving other Icelanders by capturing them in war.
Since this sort of thing happened regularly in contemporary societies in Scandinavia, England and Ireland, I have trouble seeing why Iceland should have been magically immune. Furthermore, I seem to recall at least one author mentioning this -- it might have been Byock in _Medieval Iceland_, or it might not; my recollection is that he was discussing church records. I suspect you've got Byock within arm's reach, and could answer this if you cared to.
Here's what I don't concede.
1) I don't concede that Iceland was a safer, more peaceful, or more prosperous society than the rest of contemporary Scandinavia. (actually, I believe it was _less_ peaceful and _more_ violent... but let that go for now). I understand you as claiming that Iceland was better off than its contemporaries; I'd appreciate it if you'd tell us just how it was so, and why.
2) Further, I assert that Iceland was, through much of the relevant period, a fairly violent society -- the sort of place where, in Steve Stirling's memorable phrase, you carried a spear to the outhouse.
If you want me to narrow this down, I'll add that violence was high in the Settlement and early Commonwealth period; declined during the middle Commonwealth years; then rose steadily during the Age of the Sturlungs (though I'm not venturing any assertion as to whether it was cause or effect of the end of the Commonwealth; that's a debate that I know I'm not competent to join).
Through much if not all of this period, the "background" level of violence was much higher than in the modern West. And this point /is/ supported by textevd from the Sagas, in abundance.
Oh, and finally -- The posts you say you've been looking for aren't on deja -- you're right; they were private e-mails that I sent in an off-NG discussion. My mistake (though I have to wonder if it would have made a difference). So no, I wasn't "simply lying about it".
So I've narrowed down my case and, I hope, stated it with some more clarity. I look forward to your doing the same.
(It would also be nice if we could come up with a WI from all of this, since that is the ostensible purpose of this NG. "WI Iceland not discovered" is obvious but pretty unlikely; "WI the no Old Covenant" -- that is, what if Iceland had stayed politically separate from Norway, and the Commonwealth period had continued for a while -- is much the same. Suggestions are welcome.)
Doug M.
Subject: Re: Iceland, cont'd
Date: 12/11/2000
Author: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
In article <3A348191.978DB6A5@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
> Medieval Iceland was very similar to contemporary societies in Scandinavia and
> elsewhere in the Norse world; identical language, identical religion,
> same traditions, same cultural memes.
Aside, of course, from the fact that Norwegians and Icelanders spoke a different language from Swedes--West Norse rather than East Norse.
> Frex, Iceland's first legal code --
> Ulfljot's Laws, which provided for the creation of the Thing -- was
> brought
> over from Norway by Ulfljot, and was (the Landnamabok tells us) a lightly
> adapted crib from Norway's Gula-Thing legal code.
Aside from minor details like eliminating the role of the king, creating the Logretta as the lawmaking body and the elected logosgumadr to preside over it, inventing the position of Godi, which has no equivalent in the other Scandinavian societies and plays a central role in the Icelandic legal system ... .
> Scandinavia was culturally quite homogeneous, and changed only slowly over
> time. A Norwegian from the year 1000, say, moved backwards or forwards a
> century and dropped down in Denmark or Iceland, would find himself almost
> perfectly at home. So it's not unreasonable to look at, say, ninth century
> Sweden or tenth century Norway for insights into tenth century Iceland.
You, however, were quoting an account of fifth or sixth century Sweden, not ninth century Sweden. And another account of (roughly) fifth century Germany.
> No, Iceland didn't have a king. But this isn't all that great a difference,
> as Norse kings were quite weak during most of this period. They were war
> chieftains, and some had a religious aspect as well, but even in their
> military function they were _primus inter pares_, not god-kings or autocrats,
> and they were hamstrung by the lack of a formal state structure of finance.
An accurate description of Norway before the innovations of Harald Haarfagr--which (at least according to the Icelandic sources) were the main motivation for the people who left Norway to settle Iceland.
...
> -- In any event, you've avoided the question. Are you saying that
> Iceland was
> _better_ than contemporary Scandinavian societies -- more peaceful,
> safer, a better place in which to live? And if so, how?
We don't have reliable data on rates of violent death from any of those societies--the closest we can come is the estimate of the violent death rate during the Sturlung period which I cite in my article. So I don't know whether Iceland in the 10th century was more or less peaceful than Norway in the 10th century, although my guess from the literary evidence is more.
What we do know is that Iceland had a strikingly different set of political and legal institutions from the other Norse lands--and those institutions were the subject of my article.
So far, in support of your claim that Icelanders routinely attacked each other and enslaved the victims, you have quoted one source describing Sweden c. 500 and one source describing Germany c. 500 (both, as it happens, legendary--but they presumably represent what a 13th or 14th c. Icelander thought those societies had been like). You have wildly misrepresented two passages from the most famous of the sagas--in both cases as a result of relying on a translation from the mid-19th century.
If your claim about the Icelanders is true--if, as you asserted, it shows up in all of the sources--why have you been unable to find a single piece of evidence for it?
> > More and more this is reminding me of the first round, where some person
> > or persons thought he could refute my description of the history of
> > Iceland without actually knowing anything about the subject--by deducing
> > what must have been true in Iceland by what he had read about various
> > other places, plus Kropotkin's description of early societies.
>
> I'll freely concede that some of my interpretation of medieval Iceland is
> based on inference rather than actual knowledge.
Will you also freely admit that your posts in this thread have implied precisely the opposite? When you posted that references to people attacking settlements and enslaving the inhabitants *in Iceland* could be found throughout the literature you really meant that, although you hadn't read the relevant literature for Iceland, you supposed they probably could be found?
> On the other hand, when I know that X was standard practice in medieval
> Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and England, then I think it's reasonable to
> assume that X was also the norm in Iceland.
I am glad to see that you have decided to concede that your previous posts were confident assertions about a society you knew little about, based on your guess that it must have been like other societies culturally linked to it. I would be happier, however, if you didn't try so hard to justify your doing so.
> It's an assumption, not actual
> knowledge, yes... but it's the sort of assumption that is more likely to
> be correct than otherwise.
And it was an assumption that all of the sources showed thrall taking in Iceland by Icelanders as a routine activity--and you felt free to state that assumption as a fact?
> > (you didn't say it was in another country four
> > hundred years earlier--perhaps you didn't even know it was).
>
> Again the ad hominems.
I thought I was being generous--attributing your cite to ignorance rather than dishonesty. Did you know that King Egil (if he existed) is dated c. 500?
> -- David, when you posted something that suggested an abysmal ignorance of
> 19th century Africa, I didn't say, "gosh, I wonder if you know the slightest
> thing about the Zulu wars." I and several other regular posters politely
> pointed out the reasons why a Zulu victory was impossible; none of them,
> you'll notice, suggested that you were writing from gross ignorance of the
> period (though it would certainly have been a reasonable inference).
I posted what struck me as an interesting suggestion about alternative history, making no claim to expertise. When you and several other people posted arguments suggesting that my speculations were wrong, I posted one or two more comments. Nowhere did I say "all the literature shows that the Zulus had lots of resources to buy guns with," and then "support" that claim with evidence about people somewhere else in Africa four hundred years earlier, which would have been the equivalent of your posts on thrall taking.
This argument started when you confidently asserted that my views on Iceland had been exploded by later work. You now admit that you actually don't know anything much about Iceland, hence could not have known whether what you posted was true. I see no analogy between that and my raising a speculation about a period of history about which I have only casual knowledge and never claimed to have more than casual knowledge.
> I don't assume that I know much more about a given topic than you do; I'd
> appreciate your extending the same courtesy.
I am not sure I follow that--are you saying that when you say things I know are false about a topic I know a good deal about, my concluding that you don't know much about it is discourteous?
I am happy to be courteous to people who don't pretend to knowledge that they don't have. But I think that if you look over your posts in this thread, both to me and to Al Montestruc, you will see that you do not, by any stretch of the imagination, fit into that category.
> > I had specified in the earlier part of my post an attack that happened
> > in Iceland.
>
> "Where in the Icelandic Sagas", you asked. And the Volsunga is certainly that.
A nice example of selective quotation. What I said was:
> You do remember that you were making a claim about Iceland, don't you?
> Let's try again. Where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a description of
> what you claimed to be common--a bunch of armed men attacking someone's
> house in Iceland, capturing and enslaving the people in it? Or, if you
> prefer, where in the Icelandic sagas do we find a thrall who became a
> thrall as a result of such an attack?
I clearly specified "in Iceland." The Volsungasaga does not describe events in Iceland. And my "let's try again" followed my pointing out that the first example you cited didn't happen in Iceland.
> I'll freely concede that the Volsungasaga isn't an accurate description of
> Icelandic society -- medieval Iceland probably didn't really have too
>many dragons, witches, vengeful gods, and man eating werewolves.
> On the other hand, I do think it's relevant, and has things to tell us about
> medieval Norse society in general; when the Volsungasaga describes a
> war-band mustering for battle, frex, it's probably an accurate description of how
> this was accomplished, whether in 8th century Sweden, 9th century Norway, or
> 10th century Iceland.
Or in other words, despite your claim that accounts of such attacks are common in the literature, you cannot find a single one that happened in Iceland to support your claim that they were common in Iceland.
> > I gather you don't know much about skaldic poetry either.
You asserted, about a piece of skaldic poetry, that
" these verses tend to be almost alarmingly literal."
As you would know if you had even a casual acquaintance with the subject, skaldic poetry relied on kennings--elaborate metaphors, often nested one on top of another--making it about as far from literal as poetry can get. Hence the striking difference between the translation offered in the mid-19th century by an Englishman (what you quoted) and the translation of the same verses by an Icelander in the late 20th century.
A reference to "the fire of the hawk's hill," for example, would refer not to arson but to gold.
> > I gather you haven't actually read Njalsaga, and don't own a copy,
> I have read Njalsaga, thank you; I don't have a copy on hand at the
> moment, and so must rely on online sources.
But you read it carelessly enough, or long enough ago, to have forgotten what was happening in the passage you quoted from. It is in the middle of the killing duel between Hallgerdr and Bergthora, one of the most famous chunks of the saga. Two women are feuding with each other, despite the fact that their husbands are close friends. The husbands are passing back and forth the purse of silver being used to pay for the killings their wives are arranging. Anyone who remembered that would have realized that it was the silver, not the thrall, that was recently acquired--that is, after all, part of the point of the line.
> > > If I understand correctly, you're claiming that
> > > thralls were _not_ captives taken in battle; that they were, one and
> > > all, brought into servitude by debt.
>
> > I gather you have not read my article, nor even read my posts in this
> > thread very carefully.
>
> Gracious, what a lot of gathering. In fact I have read it, ..
But somehow missed my post, in this thread, on 12/9, in which I wrote:
> In that post you asserted that thralls were largely war captives from
> Icelanders fighting each other. Would you like to cite a passage from the
> sagas describing that? I can't think of one. There were certainly lots of
> thralls in the early period who were war captives from
> elsewhere, in particular Ireland, but Iceland?
> So... let's be clear here... no thralldom by capture in battle?
Where do you get that? Thralldom by capture of people who were out of law with the Icelanders--i.e. out of Iceland (or, if you like, in Iceland for a few hours in the year 1000, although I don't think any captures actually occurred).
> I concede the following points.
>
> 1) No, I am not claiming that Icelanders were constantly fighting each other
> and taking captives. I can see where you could read my post and think
> that, so let me make that clear.
What you wrote, in response to a post by Al Montestruc, was:
(Al)
> > With whom were the Icelanders at war, and when?
(Doug)
> Each other, perpetually and constantly. I mean, /duh/, Al.
followed by, a little later in the post:
(Al)
> > Internal
> > enemies full under the judicial system,
(Doug)
> ...which consisted of "I had more warriors, I snuck up on your steading
> and burned it one night, you are now my slave. Anyone care to argue with
> me?"
That seems pretty clear. "can see where you could read my post and think that" strikes me as a distinctly grudging admission of error, but probably at least at, and perhaps above, the Usenet median.
> 2) I further concede that ten minutes with such Sagas as are available online
> provide no compelling evidence for Icelanders enslaving other Icelanders
> by capturing them in war.
Yet you confidently asserted it, as something that showed up in all the literature, when you were arguing with Al. After asserting it and being challenged you looked for support and couldn't find it.
> Since this sort of thing happened regularly in contemporary societies in
> Scandinavia, England and Ireland, I have trouble seeing why Iceland
> should have been magically immune.
This argument started with your asserting that my views on saga period Iceland had been utterly exploded (my words, not yours). Since my article was about the peculiar institutions of Iceland, I have trouble seeing how you could know that my views were wrong if you know nothing about Iceland and are merely deducing things about it from events elsewhere in Scandinavia. Nor do I understand how you could respond to Al by explicitly saying that you were talking about Iceland when you were actually talking about other places.
I will concede, however, that you are at least marginally less ignorant than the author of the earlier "refutation" of my views, since you know something about other parts of Scandinavia.
> Here's what I don't concede.
> 1) I don't concede that Iceland was a safer, more peaceful, or more
> prosperous society than the rest of contemporary Scandinavia. (actually,
> I
> believe it was _less_ peaceful and _more_ violent... but let that go for
> now).
> I understand you as claiming that Iceland was better off than its
> contemporaries; I'd appreciate it if you'd tell us just how it was so,
> and why.
I don't know if it was better off than its contemporaries with regard to violence, although I think it likely; mortality data from the 10th-13th centuries are in short supply. Materially it was probably less prosperous than some of the other Scandinavian areas, given the very difficult conditions.
The only mortality estimate I know of, from the final period of breakdown, suggests a violent death rate of about one in ten thousand, comparable to the U.S. homicide rate or auto death rate. It is pretty clear from the sagas that that period was much more violent than most of the period from 930-1262, which suggests that it may have been, on average, a relatively peaceful society. But, as I have always made clear, that estimate, although the best we have, cannot be considered reliable, given the limitations of the data. And we don't have mortality data for other Scandinavian countries to compare it with, at least as far as I know.
The central point of my article was not that Iceland was better or worse off than its contemporaries but that it had a legal system where all offenses were privately prosecuted (like modern torts) and where verdicts were privately enforced (unlike modern torts), that that system functioned, probably pretty well by comparison with contemporary systems, and that in functioning it demonstrated some of the ways in which problems with private enforcement raised by modern scholars could be dealt with.
As I think I made clear in the article, elements of such a privately enforced system existed elsewhere, but Iceland provided both a particularly pure case, due to the absence of a king, and a case for which we had a good deal of primary source material.
> 2) Further, I assert that Iceland was, through much of the relevant period,
> a fairly violent society -- the sort of place where, in Steve Stirling's
> memorable phrase, you carried a spear to the outhouse.
> If you want me to narrow this down, I'll add that violence was high in the
> Settlement and early Commonwealth period; declined during the middle
> Commonwealth years; then rose steadily during the Age of the Sturlungs
> (though I'm not venturing any assertion as to whether it was cause or effect of
> the end of the Commonwealth; that's a debate that I know I'm not competent to
> join).
I agree with the timing, subject to the general problem that our data are not very good.
> Through much if not all of this period, the "background" level of violence was
> much higher than in the modern West. And this point /is/ supported by
> textevd from the Sagas, in abundance.
You are mistaken. Your claim may well be true, but it isn't supported by the sagas, because they don't give enough data.
It is easy for a careless reader of the sagas to come to the conclusion you did, just as it is easy for a European watching American television programs and reading news stories about crimes to vastly exaggerate the level of violence in modern day America. In both cases, the same selection process is at work--violence (and, in the case of the sagas, litigation resulting from violence) is interesting, so gets heavily over represented in accounts.
Let me give you one point along these lines that struck me; I can't cite chapter and verse, although I can probably locate the passage if you really want me to. Somewhere, I think in Njalsaga, you have two successive chapters in each of which there is a violent encounter. That gives the impression of continual violence. Then you look more carefully and notice that one of the men who participates in the violence of the second chapter as an adult has not yet been born when the violence occurs in the first chapter.
The only attempt I know of to actually estimate mortality rates from the sagas is the one I cite in my article--and its result implied that the violent death rate in Iceland in what was probably its most violent period (leading to the breakdown of the system) was comparable to modern U.S. murder rates. I'm by no means sure that that result is true--we don't know how accurate or how complete the saga account is--but it is relevant to your claim that we know from the sagas that it was a very violent society.
In any case, the relevant comparison isn't to the modern West. Such (very poor) data as we have on crime rates over the long term suggests a long downward trend (you can find the article cited in my article on 18th century English criminal law, webbed on my site). From that evidence, it seems very likely that English murder rates in the period we are discussing were much higher than modern murder rates.
My claim isn't that Icelanders, desperately poor by modern standards, lived either better or more peaceful lives than Americans living in one of the richest societies in history--merely that their legal institutions, which seem very odd to our eyes, seem to have worked reasonably well in comparison with what we know about other legal institutions--and much better than a modern scholar might have expected.
> Oh, and finally -- The posts you say you've been looking for aren't on deja --
> you're right; they were private e-mails that I sent in an off-NG discussion.
> My mistake (though I have to wonder if it would have made a difference).
> So no, I wasn't "simply lying about it".
Thank you. Glad to hear it.
I gather you draw a sharp line between making statements you know are false and confidently making statements (I'm thinking in particular of your statement about skaldic poetry) that you have no reason to believe are true. The former is lying, the latter is Usenet business as usual?
> So I've narrowed down my case and, I hope, stated it with some more clarity.
> I look forward to your doing the same.
Hopefully I have just done so.
The one thing that is still unclear to me is the justification for your original post--your claim that :
"As has been pointed out, again and again and again, no serious historian accepts the Friedman view of Icelandic history any more; it was remotely plausible 30 years ago, but is not so today."
Was "the Friedman view" the view that Iceland was more peaceful and prosperous than contemporary Scandinavian societies, and as peaceful as modern western societies? I don't think you can find that anywhere in my article. Yet that seems to be the only claim you are now willing to dispute.
> (It would also be nice if we could come up with a WI from all of this, since
> that is the ostensible purpose of this NG. "WI Iceland not discovered" is
> obvious but pretty unlikely; "WI the no Old Covenant" -- that is, what if
> Iceland had stayed politically separate from Norway, and the Commonwealth
> period had continued for a while -- is much the same. Suggestions are
> welcome.)
The most interesting one is "what if the Icelandic system, instead of being eventually absorbed by conventional monarchy, had instead spread to the mainland." Presumably that would require that at some point before the 13th century the Norwegian monarchy is overthrown and replaced, not by a new monarch, but by something close to the Icelandic system. Perhaps Jarl Hakon or his son could have done it, given the right circumstances?
It's worth noting that you don't need strong monarchy to get foreign conquest--the "Danes" who gave the English so much trouble were basically entrepreneurs, not state armies. So one can imagine a future in which some combination of conquest for land plus imitation spread a decentralized, non-monarchical system over a substantial area.
--
David Friedman
www.daviddfriedman.com/
>> Forum: soc.history.what-if
>> Thread: Iceland, cont'd
>> Message 13 of 31
Subject: Re: Iceland, cont'd
Date: 12/12/2000
Author: Douglas Muir <douglas.muir@yale.edu>
David Friedman wrote:
> > Medieval Iceland was very similar to contemporary societies in
> > Scandinavia and
> > elsewhere in the Norse world; identical language, identical religion,
> > same
> > traditions, same cultural memes.
>
> Aside, of course, from the fact that Norwegians and Icelanders spoke a
> different language from Swedes--West Norse rather than East Norse.
Actually, the two were probably mutually comprehensible at the time of the settlement of Iceland. You'll notice that all the Sagas have Swedes, Danes and Norwegians chatting freely with each other.
> > Frex, Iceland's first legal code --
> > Ulfljot's Laws, which provided for the creation of the Thing -- was
> > brought
> > over from Norway by Ulfljot, and was (the Landnamabok tells us) a lightly
> > adapted crib from Norway's Gula-Thing legal code.
>
> Aside from minor details like eliminating the role of the king,
...trivial in most of Scandinavia until the 10th century.
Incidentally, Iceland wasn't formally independent from Norway until the early 11th century. Olaf Trygvesson repeatedly referred to Iceland as part of his dominions, and sent royal documents there, and the Icelanders seem to have accepted this. It wasn't until the dispute over the island of Grimsey (?) that the Icelanders officially cut the cord. IIRC this was around 1010, though I could be wrong.
> creating
> the Logretta as the lawmaking body and the elected logosgumadr to
> preside over it, inventing the position of Godi, which has no equivalent
> in the other Scandinavian societies and plays a central role in the
> Icelandic legal system ...
Godis had no equivalent? Give me a break. Look at the role played by jarls and chieftains elsewhere. In Norway, commoners couldn't cast votes at the local Things (though they could show up and make their opinions known), nor could they select jurors or act as judges -- but aristocrats could do all those things, just like the Icelandic godi.
I'd agree that a godi was not exactly the same thing as a Norwegian jarl -- there were more of them per capita, they were not aristocrats per se, peasants couldn't always choose their jarls (though they could sometimes) and the patron/client relationship was more clearly defined -- but it's absurd to say that they had "no equivalent".
> > No, Iceland didn't have a king. But this isn't all that great a
> > difference,
> > as Norse kings were quite weak during most of this period. They were war
> > chieftains, and some had a religious aspect as well, but even in their
> > military function they were _primus inter pares_, not god-kings or
> > autocrats,
> > and they were hamstrung by the lack of a formal state structure of
> > finance.
> An accurate description of Norway before the innovations of Harald
> Haarfagr--which (at least according to the Icelandic sources) were the
> main motivation for the people who left Norway to settle Iceland.
Oh, Bog (clutching head). The myth of Icelandic settlement by plucky libertarians fleeing the oppressive king. David, I expected better of you.
It's true that most Icelanders buy into this version of their history. But then, most Americans have the vague idea that the first settlers came here fleeing religious persecution and an oppressive English King. It's no excuse.
There's precious little evidence to support the theory that Iceland was settled by refugees from Harald, and much that points in other directions. Where to start.
1) Contemporary Scandinavians were expanding aggressively all over northern Europe, from Ireland to the upper Volga. They would at least attempt to colonize almost anyplace, including many that had armed and hostile inhabitants. So it hardly required Harald Fairhair's reforms to spur settlement in Iceland; Norwegians were already moving in force into Scotland, Ireland and Normandy at right about this time.
The vast majority of these were economic migrants seeking new lands ("new" in the sense that the previous inhabitants had been killed off or enslaved, generally, but anyhow available). In fact, emigration seems to have actually slackened off a bit during Harald Fairhair's reign -- partly because of new obstacles being raised in the target countries (see below), but partly because of the peace and (relative) prosperity that his reign brought.
2) During the peak period of Icelandic settlement, Scandinavian colonization efforts had met with a stiffening of resistance elsewhere. Alfred pushed the Danes out of Wessex in the late 9th century, the Norwegians got kicked out of Dublin in 901, and the Scots also began resisting effectively around this time. So the outward tide of emigration, already in full spate, was certain to turn towards any available outlet. Iceland was available.
3) Harald Fairhair's centralization efforts in Norway -- basically, he smashed a dozen petty kinglets, created the country from scratch, and installed the rudiments of a state in place -- lasted only about a quarter of a century. His "reign" is usually dated from his first big battle in 900, but he didn't really get going with the taxes and the law-making until a bit later. The settlement of Iceland took place over seventy years or so, and was mostly complete by 930. So the first two or three generations had already landed and settled there before Harald collected his first penny of "nose-tax".
4) Some moderns, especially libertarians, view Harald's reforms askance -- raising taxes! Increasing the power of the central government! Slavery and oppression!
However, a clear majority of the people supported Harald, especially among the commoners; he brought peace wherever he went, breaking the power of local tyrants and ending the endless petty power-struggles that had been bleeding the country for generations. Most people considered his taxes a reasonable price to pay for safety, and the _Heimskringla_ has little but good to say about him. Note that Harald lived to be 83 and died peacefully in bed (an achievement that no Norwegian king would equal for centuries), and descent from him immediately became the first indicator of legitimacy for would-be Norwegian Kings.
5) Most of Harald's reforms didn't long survive him. His successors, the egregious Erik Bloodaxe and the mild Haakon the Good, both gave away much of the power their father had so laboriously collected into the royal hands. The nose-tax, for instance, was gone by the reign of Olaf the Saint; Haakon gave the allodium back to the peasants, and Harold Greyfell ceded much of the royal war-waging prerogative back to the local Things.
Norway didn't have a really strong king again until the aptly named Harald Hard-Rede took the throne -- 1040 or so, IIRC.
(Hard-Rede spent his reign re-doing Fairhair's work, cracking heads and creating a fully operative Norwegian state; he then sailed off to Stamford Bridge and bequeathed his sons the final gift of killing off much of the surviving Norwegian aristocracy in that singular catastrophe. But I digress.)
6) Most of the support for the "refugees from oppression" view comes from the Icelandic Book of the Settlement (Landnamabok), along with one throwaway line in the Heimskringla. However, Landnamabok only mentions a handful of settlers as having been offended Harald Fairhair's changes. Furthermore, most of those that it does mention are aristocrats who had personal grudges against him.
For instance, two of the prominent early settlers of Iceland were Kveld-Ulf and his son Skalla-grim. Kveld-Ulf had another son, one Thorulf, who was killed by King Harald. Kveld-Ulf and Skallagrim sailed off to Iceland, swearing revenge. They eventually got it by killing a couple of Harald's cousins (and Skallagrim's son Egil went on to do all sorts of horrible deeds in Norway), but the point here is that they weren't exactly fleeing oppression -- these were wealthy noblemen who had a personal grudge against the King.
The only case I know of in which someone left Norway because of principled objections to Harald's reforms is Rollo... and Rollo seems to have been the sort of obstreperous and violent fellow who would object to *all* authority, good or bad. In any event Rollo ended up in Normandy, not Iceland (where he became the first Duke of Normandy and William the Conqueror's
great-grandfather... but, again, I digress).
7) Landnamabok is suspiciously squirmy on a couple of other issues. Frex, the unknown narrator is distinctly defensive when discussing the ancestry of the Icelanders; more than once he mentions that "foreigners" have criticized the Icelanders for being the descendants of slaves and scoundrels (it's a bit reminiscent of the convict cringe that used to afflict Australians). The narrative goes on to describe the many "good", "great" and "important" people who settled Iceland, but one is left wondering why there'd be such a need to refute the "slaves and scoundrels" charge if there wasn't some truth to it.
And, in fact, there is some evidence that many Icelanders were descended from slaves. Quite a lot of the original settlers were Irish, frex; the exact proportion remains disputed, but it has long been known that Iceland's distribution of blood types is closer to Ireland's than to Scandinavia's, and the biggest linguistic difference between Icelandic and Old Norse is in the many Irish-derived names and loan words.
Since ninth century Irish were firmly at the bottom of the Western European food chain, the vast majority of Irish in Iceland would have been thralls (IIRC a number of Irish are mentioned in the sagas, and all of them are slaves). When we get a firm number for the proportion of Irish gene complexes in Iceland's population, we'll probably be able to venture a good guess as to the proportion of thralls among the founding settlers; personally, I suspect it's going to be higher than most of us think.
(N.B., such information is near at hand. A genetic survey of Iceland is proceeding apace, and will probably be complete within the next two years. It's voluntary, but apparently about 90% of Icelanders are choosing to participate.)
Landnamabok doesn't much mention thralls, preferring to focus on the "good" people, but there are some interesting bits (like the story of the early settler who yoked his thralls in tandem with his ox, and was subsequently killed by them) that suggest they were a major component of that first wave of settlers.
Landnamabok's attitude towards outlaws is interesting, too. It acknowledges only a handful of them among the early settlers, which is IMO pretty unlikely. We know that other Norse frontier areas -- Rus, Ireland, the Dane-law in England, Greenland -- attracted outlaws by the boatload, so it challenges credulity to think that they wouldn't have been attracted to Iceland. Here again, one senses a certain "Australian" attitude towards the founders.
8) Finally, if the Icelanders emigrated to Iceland because of King Harald and his oppressive laws, then it's a bit odd that they'd send Ulfljot back to Norway to copy those same wicked laws and bring them back to Iceland.
In sum, there's little evidence to suggest that the early Icelanders were fleeing oppression, whether from Harald or otherwise. The majority of them were almost certainly economic migrants, with a sprinkling of slaves and outlaws.
If you doubt this, try this WI (hey! A what-if!) -- WI no Harald Fairhair? No unification of Norway, no taxes, no new laws. What happens to Iceland?
Answer -- it gets settled just as in OTL. And probably by almost exactly the same group of people.
> > -- In any event, you've avoided the question. Are you saying that
> > Iceland was
> > _better_ than contemporary Scandinavian societies -- more peaceful,
> > safer, a better place in which to live? And if so, how?
> We don't have reliable data on rates of violent death from any of those
> societies--the closest we can come is the estimate of the violent death
> rate during the Sturlung period which I cite in my article. So I don't
> know whether Iceland in the 10th century was more or less peaceful than
> Norway in the 10th century, although my guess from the literary evidence
> is more.
There's been a steadily accumulating pile of archeological evidence to suggest otherwise.
> What we do know is that Iceland had a strikingly different set of
> political and legal institutions from the other Norse lands--and those
> institutions were the subject of my article.
I disagree that they're "strikingly" different. A Norwegian from the days before King Harald, moved forward a century or two and west a few hundred miles, would find little to confuse him in 11th or 12th century Iceland... no central authority, society stratified along the same lines, same language and religion, same customs, very similar laws.
Mind, a 12th century Norwegian moved to 12th century Iceland would have more difficulties -- Icelandic society was in many ways more "primitive" than its contemporaries.
[much snippage]
> I am happy to be courteous to people who don't pretend to knowledge that
> they don't have. But I think that if you look over your posts in this
> thread, both to me and to Al Montestruc, you will see that you do not,
> by any stretch of the imagination, fit into that category.
In case it isn't obvious by now, I'm responding to you in rather a different manner than to Al. Al has long since established his bona fides on this NG -- viz., he's a flamer who has little actual knowledge of history, and who tends to view what he does know through a thick fog of ideological preconceptions. Discussions with Al tend to degenerate into slanging matches fairly quickly.
This is a pity, but it's part of the anarchic nature of Usenet; absent moderation, Usenet is like a crowded bar in which one may turn in a moment from scholarly debate to bare-knuckles brawling.
> Or in other words, despite your claim that accounts of such attacks are
> common in the literature, you cannot find a single one that happened in
> Iceland to support your claim that they were common in Iceland.
Actually, now that I think about it, don't a couple of women get kidnapped and carried off in the Storlungasaga?
(Yes, I've already conceded the point. But you have a copy of the Saga at hand and I don't.)
> > So... let's be clear here... no thralldom by capture in battle?
> Where do you get that? Thralldom by capture of people who were out of
> law with the Icelanders--i.e. out of Iceland (or, if you like, in
> Iceland for a few hours in the year 1000, although I don't think any
> captures actually occurred).
I'm sory, I don't catch that reference.
So, thralldom by capture of people out of law. This would include foreigners, yes?
> This argument started with your asserting that my views on saga period
> Iceland had been utterly exploded (my words, not yours). Since my
> article was about the peculiar institutions of Iceland, I have trouble
> seeing how you could know that my views were wrong if you know nothing
> about Iceland and are merely deducing things about it from events
> elsewhere in Scandinavia.
The "Friedman view" of Icelandic history that I take exception to is shorthand for a particular naive view of that history which generally goes well beyond the assertions of your various articles.
You may not have *intended* to create the meme of a Lost Libertarian Golden Age, but it's out there, and as far as I can tell it traces back to your writings. And it has resulted in people holding the damnedest silly ideas about Iceland. I've had a libertarian tell me with a straight face that the Sagas are "the founding documents of capitalism". Al Montestruc, you might have noted, has claimed (inter alia) that Iceland was "a society run on libertarian ideals"... as was, in his informed opinion, pre-English conquest Ireland.
This is the sort of thing that gets lumped under the heading of "Friedman view". You may protest at the attachment of your name to this sort of nonsense -- I would -- but it's clear that Al (and many others) have based their ideas on Iceland solely on your writings. I doubt that you intended for your ideas to be expanded and distorted in this manner, but it's quite clear that they have been.
Now, history is an evolving science, and this is particularly true for Scandinavian history. New evidence is coming in all the time; I've mentioned archeological stuff, and there's also the very interesting genetic survey of Iceland, which may finally give some closure to some of the debates about Icelandic origins (I'm particularly hoping that they can settle the question of Danish settlement once and for all). Point being, most of the recent historical research that I'm aware of has pointed to an ever more complex view of early Iceland, and one that diverges ever further from the "Friedman view".
The "Friedman view" is shorthand, obviously. It's /not/ what you've written about Iceland. Although I think you have a very rosy view of the place, and I disagree with several of your conclusions, there's nothing in your article that's outright wrong. But eager and naive readers who share your ideology have projected their own wishes and fantasies onto your writings. Since I'm rather fond of Scandinavian history, I find this grating; hence my sharp (perhaps over-sharp) reaction to the "Friedman view".
-- If you think I'm attaching your name to a straw man, BTW, try this. Go over to one of the libertarian NGs and, using an anonymous account (hotmail, say), post a question or two about Iceland. I think you'll be *amazed* at some of the responses you get. Well, I hope you'll be amazed.
> I don't know if it was better off than its contemporaries with regard to
> violence, although I think it likely; mortality data from the 10th-13th
> centuries are in short supply.
If it wasn't actually better off, then this speaks badly for Icelandic society. After all, Norway and Denmark were at more or less continuous war during the ninth and tenth centuries -- with each other, with contenders to the throne, with separatist rebels, you name it.
You'd expect Iceland, with no external enemies, no crown to struggle for, and indeed no wars at all, to be _less_ violent -- strikingly so.
> The central point of my article was not that Iceland was better or worse
> off than its contemporaries but that it had a legal system where all
> offenses were privately prosecuted (like modern torts) and where
> verdicts were privately enforced (unlike modern torts), that that system
> functioned, probably pretty well by comparison with contemporary
> systems, and that in functioning it demonstrated some of the ways in
> which problems with private enforcement raised by modern scholars could
> be dealt with.
See, this is where the rose-colored glasses begin to slide up the nose IMO. The sagas are full of gruesome cases where the system didn't work; and there are plenty more where, although it did, the results were palpably unjust.
To give a single example off the top of my head, there's the bit where Thorolf goes to his local judge and says he has a dispute with his son Altskell (IIR the names correctly). The judge refuses to take the case, saying that Altskell is the better man. Thorolf replies that he knows the judge is no friend of Altskell, so he must be holding out for a higher price; he offers a piece of land that he knows the judge wants. The judge takes the bribe and delivers a ruling in Thorolf's favor. The section ends with the dry comment that this was legal, "but people were not well pleased with it".
Or Njall. I know you like to point out that Njall was more famous as a lawyer than a warrior. To which the obvious response is "yes, and look what happened to him."
I mean, the legal code included a provision for settling land disputes by duelling.
The fact that Icelandic has a short word for "hired assassins" (_flugumenn_) is also suggestive IMO.
> > Through much if not all of this period, the "background" level of
> > violence was
> > much higher than in the modern West. And this point /is/ supported by
> > textevd from the Sagas, in abundance.
>
> You are mistaken. Your claim may well be true, but it isn't supported by
> the sagas, because they don't give enough data.
[snip the "sagas only give us the juicy bits" argument]
This has been debated before, as you well know, and while the question remains open, there is not enough evidence for you to say I am wrong here.
Furthermore, your argument doesn't explain why (for instance) characters in the Sagas tend to go about armed at all times. I'm thinking in particular of a bit in Njall's Saga where one character goes to kill another, and finds him cutting turf "with his spear laid on the ground beside him". Since it's an ambush and an assassination, the victim wasn't expecting this particular attack... he was just carrying his spear around, like he always did when doing the chores. I find that suggestive, and I'm not alone in that.
> > (It would also be nice if we could come up with a WI from all of this,
[snip]
> The most interesting one is "what if the Icelandic system, instead of
> being eventually absorbed by conventional monarchy, had instead spread
> to the mainland." Presumably that would require that at some point
> before the 13th century the Norwegian monarchy is overthrown and
> replaced, not by a new monarch, but by something close to the Icelandic
> system. Perhaps Jarl Hakon or his son could have done it, given the
> right circumstances?
Nope. See, you'd have to wipe out the whole wretched squabbling Yngling clan, root and branch. Almost every male descendant of Harald Fairhair could lay some sort of claim to the crown -- look how it pinballed endlessly among brothers, nephews, cousins and second cousins -- and, more to the point, the Norwegian people accepted this.
There was always a Yngling or two hanging around in Denmark or Sweden waiting for the reigning king to die, there were always Danish and Swedish kings ready to bankroll their expeditions, and the Norwegians showed a singular willingness to let cousins fight it out and follow the winner.
You couldn't "overthrow" the hydra-headed monstrosity that was the Norwegian monarchy, because it was perpetually overthrowing itself, to general applause. Think of the Wars of the Roses, except that it went on for 300 years.
> It's worth noting that you don't need strong monarchy to get foreign
> conquest--the "Danes" who gave the English so much trouble were
> basically entrepreneurs, not state armies. So one can imagine a future
> in which some combination of conquest for land plus imitation spread a
> decentralized, non-monarchical system over a substantial area.
Um, no.
If there's one thing states are good at, it's force multiplication. In the long run, organized states kick the crap out of stateless societies. You can argue whether this is *necessarily* true, but historical exceptions are either very rare or nonexistent, depending on how you tweak your definitions.
The Danes made progress in England for a while because England was weak and divided; when a strong King took command, the Danish advance was stopped cold. The same thing happend in Ireland a bit later.
It didn't necessarily need a strong _King_, mind you. In France and Germany, an efficient feudal system under weak kings stopped the Vikings just as cold. But this was a distinction with little difference; the tax-paying peasants who made up the mass of the population probably didn't care much whether they were giving their grain and gold to the local lord or the distant King, as long as some men on horseback showed up when the Viking sails hove over the horizon.
The "entrepeneurial" Danes in England (or the Norwegians in Normandy or Iceland, or the Swedes in Rus) might make some initial gains against disorganized and divided opponents. In the long run, though, they simply encouraged the development of robust and efficient states, whether centralized or otherwise. Eventually, the invaders either ended up at the top of the state structure (Rus) or made peace with it and copied it (Normandy) or got assimilated into it (the Danes in England) or got thrown out by it (Ireland).
Iceland could only keep its system because it was an island a week's sail away from anywhere. If it'd been located in the North Sea, it would have had Kings and, eventually, the full apparatus of the state.
Doug M.
Subject: Re: Iceland, cont'd
Date: 12/12/2000
Author: David Friedman <ddfr@best.com>
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In article <3A35B9CE.70B47A0@yale.edu>, Douglas Muir
<douglas.muir@yale.edu> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> > > Medieval Iceland was very similar to contemporary societies in
> > > Scandinavia and
> > > elsewhere in the Norse world; identical language, identical religion,
> > > same
> > > traditions, same cultural memes.
> >
> > Aside, of course, from the fact that Norwegians and Icelanders spoke a
> > different language from Swedes--West Norse rather than East Norse.
> Actually, the two were probably mutually comprehensible at the time of the
> settlement of Iceland. You'll notice that all the Sagas have Swedes,
> Danes and Norwegians chatting freely with each other.
Not to mention Icelanders and Anglo-Saxons. My assumption is that all three languages were close enough so that someone who knew one could learn another fairly easily if doing so was useful, but not necessarily mutually comprehensible. Of course, East Norse and West Norse would have been closer than either to Anglo-Saxon, and it is certainly possible that they were mutually comprehensible.
I gather that at present Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are mutually comprehensible, but that a speaker of one of those cannot easily read (or understand?) Icelandic.
> > > Frex, Iceland's first legal code --
> > > Ulfljot's Laws, which provided for the creation of the Thing -- was
> > > brought
> > > over from Norway by Ulfljot, and was (the Landnamabok tells us) a
> > > lightly
> > > adapted crib from Norway's Gula-Thing legal code.
> > Aside from minor details like eliminating the role of the king,
> ...trivial in most of Scandinavia until the 10th century.
Which is when this is all happening.
In any case, the Icelanders seem to have thought that the role of the King of Norway became nontrivial sometime late in the ninth century.
> Incidentally, Iceland wasn't formally independent from Norway until the
> early
> 11th century. Olaf Trygvesson repeatedly referred to Iceland as part of
> his
> dominions, and sent royal documents there, and the Icelanders seem to
> have
> accepted this. It wasn't until the dispute over the island of Grimsey
> (?)
> that the Icelanders officially cut the cord. IIRC this was around 1010,
> though I could be wrong.
Interesting if true. In the controversy over Christianity, which peaked in 1000, the king of Norway was trying to pressure the Icelanders to go Christian. But I don't remember anything in the Icelandic sources that implied that the Icelanders thought he had any legal grounds for doing so.
Kveldulf and Skallagrim kill two kinsmen of the king of Norway en route to Iceland, and there is nothing in Egilsaga to suggest that anyone thought Harald had any legal claim over Skallagrim once he got to Iceland. Throughout Egilsaga it seems to be taken for granted that Iceland is independent, and similarly for Njalsaga.
Of course, it is possible that the king of Norway claimed sovereignty and the Icelanders ignored the claim.
> > creating
> > the Logretta as the lawmaking body and the elected logosgumadr to
> > preside over it, inventing the position of Godi, which has no
> > equivalent
> > in the other Scandinavian societies and plays a central role in the