Weregeld, Icelandic and Orlanthi

From: John Hughes <nysalor_at_primus.com.au>
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 15:01:33 +1000


WEREGELD - ICELANDIC & ORLANTHI David clarifies an uncertain point about weregeld, but alas leaves me in the dark about my allegedly dubious spaellings.

> "In Gragas the right to lawful redress for injury and the legal
> amount prescribed, 6 marks (48 legal ounces), was the same for all
> freemen, whether farmers or chieftains. The sagas, however, show
> awards being adjusted for the relative respect accorded to different
> individuals." [Jesse Byock, Viking Age Iceland, p.135]

Farmers and chieftains are hardly 'everyone', which was the statement I was querying. :) According to the sources I quoted, you pay 12 ounces silver weregeld for a thrall, 100 ounces for a freeman, 200 ounces for an important man, and heavens knows what if you kill a woman or child: this is hardly "a fixed legal value, no matter who was killed".

Or is it? Leaving aside the inclusion of women, children and thralls, it seems that the term 'legal value' is the killer: Perhaps, as in Heortling law, the law codes give starting points for negotiation, and the actual geld is decided by circumstances, politics and skill in negotiation. This is certainly what Njal's Saga suggests for me.

I understand that the Gragas (the written Icelandic law codes) were composed in the early to mid twelth century - roughly midway between the settlement and the eventual collapse of the weregild system amidst widespread violence tantamount to civil war. Perhaps they were an attempt to set fixed values and so quell the already rampant weregeld inflation? If so, it was in vain. In a system where you are your own enforcer, its very easy to ignore the law, or merely to give it cursory lip-service.

> (The sagas are also of debatable
> historical value, though Byock tends to find them valuable.)
>

Debatable in what sense though? Sure they're historical romances, and play fast and loose with history. But as social documents? Njal's Saga, from which I drew my main counter-example, was written for a native audience in the period where the weregild system was in final collapse (late C13), and it draws on both oral traditions and written documents. Why shouldn't it be considered reliable about its own institutions?

Surely one of the dimensions of Njal's Saga is as a meditation on why the Icelandic version of weregild, personal enforcement and inflated sense of slight and honour *didn't* work. As Njal himself says, "With laws shall our land be built up, but with lawlessness laid waste."

I've argued in the past that Icelandic sagas serve as a poor analog for Heortling law, and my prime reason is a simple one: the Icelanders had no clans. Clans mean group responsibility for compliance and enforcement, it means that the individual sense of honour and outrage (admittedly similar in both cultures) is always subordinated to a higher political and social reality, and to the possibility of compromise. It means that wayward acts such as murder or burning a stead are much more likely to bring retribution in kind. It also acts as a disincentive to truly random violence: an act like burning a stead is likely to involve wives of several birth clans, and you're suddenly facing three or four enemy clans rather than one.

Getting back to the original question, could we have an Orlanthi society where weregeld, at least for free, adult males, was the same? Yes of course, but such factoids don't exist in isolation - so what sort of institutions could uphold and sustain such a concept? Would it be a clan-based society? A post-clan society? What flow on effects would be created when the death of a king is held equal to the death of a stickpicker? And who would enforce such laws to ensure long-term survival?

The Iceland settlement was unique, for most of its independent history being free of enemies or external threats that would have prompted the development of central authorities like clans or kingdoms. It's difficult for me to think of Gloranthan analogues for such a state, so perhaps Orlanthi societies having equal weregild evolved in other ways. But which ways?

I find the idea of Orlanthi learning from their mistakes without the advantage of a clan to moderate them *pretty damn scarey*, but it would be nice to see such an idea developed.

>And outside any friendly disagreement on this matter, I strongly
> recommend this book by Byock to anyone interested in how Iceland
> actually worked in this time period.

\

Definitely friendly: I had no intention to question your scholarship, merely to tease out an apparent discrepancy in the sources. I will look out for Byock. In the meantime I can only recommend again the Friedman link, which examines weregeld and private enforcement in Medieval Iceland:

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html

Cheers

John


nysalor_at_iprimus.com.au                              John Hughes
Questlines: http://home.iprimus.com.au/pipnjim/questlines/

"Surely Waylands work does not betray
any man who can hold Mimming strong."

--__--__--

End of Glorantha Digest

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