firth homicide feud medieval iceland

Coercion, vengeance, feud andaccommodation: homicide in

medieval Icelandemed_339 139..175

Hugh F irth

Quantitative methods were employed to situate medieval Icelandic homicidein comparative context. Estimates of homicide rates were derived fromsamtíðarsögur, and found comparable with European rural medieval homi-cide estimates: late twelfth-century Iceland was probably not as violent as aqualitative reading of the sagas might suggest. There were significant differ-ences in patterns of vengeance between íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur.In íslendingasögur, farmers committing homicide faced flight, outlawry ordeath; chieftains who initiated homicide might escape justice, although mostbecame embroiled in feud. In samtíðarsögur, lethal vengeance followingordinary homicide was less common, and not a source of feud. These resultsgenerate a critique of previous notions of reciprocity in Icelandic vengeance,and support more recent interpretations of early medieval Icelandic society asa highly unequal, divided society. Both sources suggest that, although ven-geance may have been legitimated in the language of ‘repayment’, vengeanceis best understood within a cross-cultural context as competitive behaviourdesigned to achieve superiority rather than parity.

Introduction

Nearly two decades ago, Ross Samson commented that ‘historians con-cerned with the nature of wealth and authorities of goðar (chieftains) have

* The idea for this study came from a remark by William Ian Miller, that homicide rates ‘are notrecoverable in medieval Iceland, since we know neither the number of homicides nor thenumber of people’ (Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland(Chicago, 1990), p. 303). In addressing this challenge, I am very appreciative of the supervisionand support provided by Dr Scott Ashley in the conduct of the study and the preparation of thispaper. I am also grateful to Dr Chris Callow, and two anonymous reviewers, for their criticalcomments on earlier drafts, who have encouraged me to tighten the study and clarify a numberof points of interpretation. Correspondence to [email protected] or 17 LindisfarneRoad, Newcastle on Tyne, NE2 2HE, UK.

Early Medieval Europe 2012 20 (2) 139–175© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350

Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

tended to be blinded by the evidence for feuding’.1 Two years earlier,William Ian Miller had published his landmark study of feud in medievalIcelandic society. Miller’s view, influenced by anthropological thinking,was of a society deeply permeated by fundamental conceptions of reci-procity, payment and requital as the currency within which all socialrelationships were transacted.2 A view of the relationship between inde-pendent farmers and chieftains emphasizing reciprocal relationships ofsupport and protection was highlighted then, and subsequently, by JesseByock.3 A radical revision challenging the view of independent choice byfarmers to support particular goðorðsmenn (leading men) was initiated bySamson and has more recently been developed and vigorously articulatedby Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Orri Vésteinsson.4 Interwoven with theseissues about the structures within Icelandic society have been assump-tions and questions about the extent of violence in medieval Iceland.Miller’s vision of medieval Iceland as a violent society is hard to mistake.Yet his focus on the structuring of relationships led him to give greateremphasis to the symmetric elements in the society, and hence to feud,

1 R. Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’, in G. Pálsson (ed.), From Sagas to Society:Comparative Approaches to Early Iceland (Enfield, 1992), pp. 167–88, at p. 167. Goðar and goðorðwere not exactly chieftains and chieftaincies; Vésteinsson has argued in favour of Kjartansson’sview that goðorð represented primarily a right to representation at the Alþing, rather than a local‘chieftain’ role, and that ‘chieftains’ were of many sorts – some with, some without goðorð. Inboth samtíðarsögur and íslendingasögur the term goðorð is used to refer specifically to the role (forexample buying, or holding, a goðorð), whereas the person holding the role is occasionallydescribed as goðorðsmaðr, but usually described by the term höfðingi (pl. höfðingjar), commonlytranslated as chieftain. Their authority over men is sometimes referred to as mannaforráð. In theanalysis and discussion of the data, I have used the terms goðorðsmaðr (sing.) and goðorðsmenn(pl.) to facilitate clarity when referring to the holders of goðorð. In the broader discussion ofrelationships between farmers and their goðorðsmenn, I have however generally chosen the termshöfðingjar or chieftain deliberately to include Vésteinsson’s wider range of local power holders.See also Guðrún Helgadóttir (ed.), Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar (Oxford, 1987), note 1/16, p.58; Helgi Skúli Kjartansson, Fjöldi goðorða samkvæmt Grágás: Erindi flutt á málstefnu StofnunarSigurðar Nordals 24–26 júlí 1988 (Reykjavík, 1989); Orri Vésteinsson, The Christianization ofIceland: Priests, Power, and Social Change 1000–1300 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 7–9; Orri Vésteinsson,‘A Divided Society: Peasants and Aristocracy in Medieval Iceland’, Viking and Medieval Scan-dinavia 3 (2007) pp. 117–39. For examples, see Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, ÍslenzkFornrit [henceforth ÍF] 11 (Reykjavík, 1950), pp. 4–5, 58, 142, 218, 305; The Complete Sagas ofIcelanders including 49 Tales, ed. Viðar Hreinsson, 5 vols (Reykjavík, 1997), IV, pp. 304, 324, 357,381, 451 (trans.); Sturlunga saga, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and KristjánEldjárn, 2 vols (Reykyavík, 1946), I, pp. 243, 257; II, pp. 161, 163; Sturlunga saga, ed. J. McGrew,2 vols (New York, 1970), II, p. 133, 149; II, pp. 148, 150 (trans.).

2 W.I. Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland (Chicago,1990): the anthropological literature is addressed at pp. 179–89, violence at pp. 301–8.

3 J. Byock, Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas and Power (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 111–12; J. Byock, VikingAge Iceland (London, 2001), pp. 119–28.

4 Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’; Jón V. Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power in theIcelandic Commonwealth, trans. Jean Lundskær-Nielsen (Odense, 1999), pp. 39–101; Vésteins-son, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 1–16, 84–92, 238–46; Vésteinsson, ‘A Divided Society’, pp.117–39.

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rather than to the asymmetric processes of exploitation throughgifts, debt, labour and rent, addressed by Samson, Sigurðsson andVésteinsson.5

Although Miller focused as much on peacemaking as blood-taking,Jesse Byock espoused a view of early medieval Iceland with greateremphasis on brokerage as an alternative to ‘feud (which only) operated asa form of limited, coercive violence’, whilst ‘goðar . . . early became politi-cal entrepreneurs adept at forming ad hoc interest groups of often unre-lated backers’.6 Byock saw violence as only one option, often avoidedthrough the mere threat of retaliation: even overt confrontation by armedmen he regarded not as evidence of impending bloodshed or a violentsociety, but merely a public display of commitment by supporters onboth sides.7 In this respect, Byock shares much with a view of vengeancedeveloped by Christopher Boehm, whose classic study of Montenegrinvengeance processes emphasized individuals’ ambivalence amidst emo-tional turmoil, as well as their deliberate choices in decision-makingwhich ‘almost always were active and reflective . . . sometimes . . . highlyinventive’.8

Trying to assess the uncertain mix of vengeance and accommodationin response to wrong has presented a continued challenge for scholars ofconflict, whether in the nineteenth-century Mediterranean, early medi-eval Europe or medieval Iceland.9 Miller took issue with those includingByock who followed Max Gluckman in believing the threat of feud actedto limit violence, although Miller himself noted how ‘the impression ofexcessive violence often (might be) a function of the compression of

5 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 179–89; contrast Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’, pp. 173–81,184–7, Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 53–60, and Vésteinsson, ‘A Divided Society’, pp.128–37.

6 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 68–76, 259–99; Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 207, 217–18, and see alsopp. 126–9, 196–232.

7 Byock, Medieval Iceland, especially pp. 110, 176, 222.8 C. Boehm, Blood Revenge: The Enactment and Management of Conflict in Montenegro and other

Tribal Societies (Pennsylvania, 1987), at pp. 148, 153. See also C. Boehm, ‘Ambivalence andCompromise in Human Nature’, American Anthropologist 91 (1989), pp. 921–39; and C. Boehm,‘Emergency Decisions, Cultural Selection Mechanics, and Group Selection’, Current Anthro-pology 37 (1996), pp. 763–93.

9 A. Heusler, Das Strafrecht der Isländersagas (Leipzig, 1911); A. Heusler, Zum isländischen Feh-dewesen in der Sturlungzeit (Berlin, 1912); J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Bloodfeud of theFranks’, in J.M. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), The Long-Haired Kings and Other Studies in FrankishHistory (London, 1962), pp. 121–47; Boehm, Blood Revenge; S. Wilson, Feuding, Conflict andBanditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica (Cambridge, 1988); Miller, Bloodtaking; Samson,‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’; Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 151–85; Byock, VikingAge Iceland; P.R. Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England (Ithaca, 2003); S.D.White, Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe, Variorum CollectedStudies 823 (Aldershot, 2005).

Homicide in medieval Iceland 141


narrative time’.10 Michael Wallace-Hadrill had emphasized how accom-modation was often a product of the fear of vengeance, and that ‘feuding(was always) . . . necessarily hovering on the edge of bloodshed’.11

The present paper is novel in employing a quantitative approach toexamine the possible incidence of homicidal violence, as well as theprocesses behind vengeance and accommodation, in medieval Icelandicsociety. (Whitelock’s term ‘vengeance’ is to be preferred to ‘feud’, unlessa clear cycle of vengeance is evident.)12 Was a need to maintain honourassociated with particularly high homicide rates? What were the relation-ships between free householders and chieftains (höfðingjar) where ven-geance and advocacy were concerned? How might differences betweensamtíðarsögur (‘contemporary’ sagas) and íslendingasögur (family sagas) beviewed? Controversy and uncertainty over how far íslendingasögur mightreflect Icelandic society prior to the thirteenth century has made manyscholars wary of addressing issues of social change and development inearly medieval Iceland. Miller sidestepped the issue almost altogether;Byock emphasized development after around 1200. More recently, JónViðar Sigurðsson and Orri Vésteinsson have specifically addressed theprocess of social and political development between the tenth and thir-teenth centuries.13 This paper hopefully demonstrates the value of aquantitative approach to reflections on changing processes of homicideand vengeance: the results lend support to recent interpretations of earlyIcelandic society as a highly unequal, divided society, rather than oneunited by shared assumptions of reciprocity and honour.

Use of the sources

Samtíðarsögur (‘contemporary’ sagas) comprise a detailed but partisanand selective record of events amongst Iceland’s most powerful familiesbetween around 1115 and 1264. Most are incorporated within Sturlungasaga, probably compiled shortly after 1300, and subsequently copied astwo vellum manuscripts in the mid- to late fourteenth century, and as

10 Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 304. See also W.I. Miller, ‘Feud in the Icelandic Saga’ (Review), Speculum59 (1984), pp. 376–9; J. Black-Michaud, Cohesive Force: Feud in the Mediterranean and theMiddle-East (New York, 1975); M. Gluckman, Custom and Conflict in Africa (Oxford, 1956), pp.1–26 (especially p. 22). Gluckman’s analysis was based on Evans-Pritchard’s work: E.E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (Oxford, 1940). For the influence of this perspective on the debates aboutfeuding in early medieval societies, see I. Wood, ‘The Bloodfeud of the Franks: A Historio-graphical Legend’, EME 14 (2006), pp. 489–504; and P. Hyams, ‘Feud and the State in LateAnglo-Saxon England’, Journal of British Studies 40 (2001), pp. 1–43.

11 Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Bloodfeud of the Franks’, at p. 147.12 D. Whitelock, The Beginnings of English Society (Harmondsworth, 1965), pp. 31–43.13 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–51; Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 324–47; Sigurðsson, Chieftains

and Power, pp. 39–83; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 238–46.

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seventeenth-century paper copies. The standard edition is based prima-rily on the longer Króksfjarðarbók manuscript.14

Íslendinga saga, the longest single component within Sturlunga saga, isgenerally believed to be a late work of Sturla Þórðarson; the influence ofboth the compiler and subsequent copyists is probably not negligible.15

Nevertheless, Sturlunga saga is generally regarded as a tolerably reliablesource for historical events and chronology, given the likely intervalbetween events and saga-writing: some 120 years at most for Þorgils saga okHafliða, substantially shorter (typically 20–60 years) for the other sagas.16

Guðmundar saga dýra is believed to have been written soon afterGuðmundr Eyjólfsson’s death in 1212. Although Magnús Jónsson believedit was a collection of tales, other scholars have seen it as a single tale, on thegrounds of its consistent characterization and composition.17 The sagaportrays Guðmundr in a distinctively positive light. Likewise, Hrafns sagaSveinbjarnarsonar, probably composed around 1230–40 about eventslargely between 1200 and 1217, emphasizes Hrafn’s restraint in contrast tothat of his rival Þorvaldr Snorrason: all these sagas are narrative accounts,written by individuals with a specific motivation affecting their selection ofevents, narrative method, and portrayal of individuals.18

As a source for exploring homicide within twelfth- to thirteenth-century Icelandic society however, the disadvantage of Sturlunga saga is itsfocus on the regional struggles of chieftains and bishops in a period ofrapid political change. Homicides by lesser mortals only appear whenthey affect either the reputation of the subject, or the subsequent courseof events. Nevertheless, these near contemporary texts are regarded assufficiently reliable sources for their core events, that they can be used notonly to provide insights into the structure of disputes at the turn of thethirteenth century, but also, given some explicit assumptions below, togenerate some crude estimates of the frequency of homicide in Iceland inthis period.

14 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson. On manuscripts, see Jón Jóhannesson, ‘Um Sturlunga Sögu’,in ibid., II, pp. xiii–xxi; J. McGrew, ‘Introduction’, in Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 15–23;Úlfar Bragason, ‘Sagas of Contemporary History (Sturlunga saga): texts and research’, in R.McTurk (ed.), A Companion to Old Norse–Icelandic Literature and Culture (Oxford, 2005), pp.427–46, at pp. 428–33. The variant manuscripts differ chiefly in their accounts of events after1246.

15 Bragason, ‘Sagas of Contemporary History’.16 Bragason, ‘Sagas of Contemporary History’, at pp. 440–2; Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, p.

18; Ólafír Einarsdóttir, Studier in kronologisk metode I tidlig islansk historieskrivning (Lund,1964).

17 Magnús Jónsson, Guðmundar saga dýra: Nokkrar athuganir um uppruna hennar og samsetning(Reykjavík, 1940); Jacqueline Simpson, ‘Advocacy and Art in Guðmundar saga dýra’, Saga-Bookof the Viking Society 15 (1961), pp. 327–45; Bragason, ‘Sagas’, at pp. 435–6.

18 Guðrún Helgadóttir, ‘Introduction’, in Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, ed. Guðrún Helgadóttir(Oxford, 1987), pp. xi–cxvi, see particularly pp. xxi–xxxi; Simpson, ‘Advocacy and Art inGuðmundar saga dýra’, pp. 328–9; Bragason, ‘Sagas’, at pp. 433–42.



The majority of íslendingasögur, or ‘family sagas’, relate events whichare set during the tenth and eleventh centuries. Most were probablywritten down in their present form during or shortly after the majorpolitical upheavals that shook Iceland during the thirteenth century; theircontent may have been influenced by contemporary concerns about thetypes of conflict current during the mid-thirteenth century. Some werealmost certainly composed much later, during the fourteenth or fifteenthcenturies.19 Assessment and interpretation of íslendingasögur has longbeen contentious: two separate but interlinked issues of controversy havebeen whether their origins were primarily written or oral, and whatbalance of fictional and historical elements they might comprise. Essen-tially naive historical interpretations were increasingly challenged in thelate nineteenth and early twentieth century.20 Sigurður Nordal’s view ofHrafnkels saga Freysgoði as a work of fiction was generalized as a judge-ment on all íslendingasögur in a dominant consensus during the mid-twentieth century, with factors such as consistent chronology seen merelyas the product of well-researched storytelling.21 It is important thereforeto note that Nordal accepted the historicity of many of the bare events iníslendingasögur, particularly those supported by the evidence of Íslending-abók or Landnámabók. He recognized that ‘oral tradition could havepreserved (some) historical material for two or three centuries’.22 Heargued that each saga differed in historicity, Droplaugarsona saga beingmore dependent on oral tradition, and preferable to Hrafnkels saga inhistorical accuracy; his conclusion was that there are no easy distinctionsto be made between saga material based on oral history, the partiallyerroneous and the frankly fictitious.23

Debate has continued between those who view íslendingasögur as pri-marily thirteenth- and fourteenth-century literary creations, and thosewhose view is that many derive from an older oral tradition in which

19 Vésteinn Ólason, ‘Family Sagas’, in McTurk (ed.), Companion to Old Norse–Icelandic Literature,pp. 101–18; Vésteinn Ólason, Dialogues with the Viking Age: Narration and Representation in theSagas of the Icelanders, trans. A. Wawn (Reykjavík, 1998), pp. 61–2; Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Oralityand Literacy in the Sagas of Icelanders’, in McTurk (ed.), Companion to Old Norse–IcelandicLiterature, pp. 285–301.

20 Edwin Jessen, ‘Glaubwürdigkeit der Egils-Saga und Anderer Isländer-Saga’s’, HistorischeZeitschrift 28 (1872), pp. 61–100; Heusler, Das Strafrecht der Isländersagas; Knut Leistøl, TheOrigin of the Icelandic Family Sagas, trans. A.G. Jayne (Oslo, 1930), p. 250. A good historio-graphical summary is Theodore Andersson, The Problem of Icelandic Saga Origins (New Haven,1964), pp. 41–50, 61–4, 129–33.

21 Sigurður Nordal, Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoði: A Study, trans. G. Thomas (Cardiff, 1958), pp. 26–7,56–7; but see also Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, p. 31.

22 Sigurður Nordal, The Historical Element in the Icelandic Family Sagas (Glasgow, 1957), pp. 21–2,25–6, 35; Nordal, Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoði, p. 65.

23 Nordal, Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoði, pp. 15–16, 59–62. Sigurður Nordal took the view that 120–130years was a very credible timescale for the recollection of historical events, but 250 years was not:The Historical Element, p. 18.

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significant events were told and retold with varied embellishments, foredification, entertainment and amusement.24 There is significant evi-dence for the latter view for certain of these sagas. Laxdæla saga portrayspolitical relationships between farms which appear to substantially pre-date its presumed thirteenth-century written origin.25 Gunnlaugs sagaormstungu and Harðar saga ok Hólmverja describe events which are atleast consistent with recent archaeological findings.26 Egils saga Skal-lagrímssonar describes the exploits of a tenth-century figure previouslyinterpreted in purely symbolic and fictional terms, who may well havebeen a historical figure who suffered bone-thickening Paget’s disease.27

Oral storytelling may be able to preserve genealogical information for upto six generations, although such information is likely to become pro-gressively corrupted over time as a consequence of current political con-cerns as well as human error.28 By contrast, some later sagas such asHrafnkels saga and Gunnars saga Keldugnúpsfífls, appear more one-

24 The debates over saga dating and historicity can be traced through Sturlunga Saga, ed. G.Vígfusson, 2 vols (Oxford, 1878), I, pp. xxi–lxxxii; Leistøl, Origin of the Icelandic Family Sagas;Nordal, The Historical Element; Nordal, Hrafnkels Saga Freysgoða, p. 26; Andersson, TheProblem of Icelandic Saga Origins, pp. 41–64, 129–33; Jakob Benediktsson, ‘Landnámabók: SomeRemarks on its Value as a Historical Source’, Saga-Book of the Viking Society 17 (1969), pp.275–92; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 15–23, 31–45; C.J. Clover, ‘Icelandic Family Sagas(Íslendigasögur)’, in C.J. Clover and J. Lindow (eds), Old Norse Icelandic Literature: A CriticalGuide (Ithaca, 1985), pp. 239–316; Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–51; O. Falk, ‘Bystanders andHearsayers First: Reassessing the Role of the Audience in Duelling’, in M. Meyerson, D. Thieryand O. Falk (eds), A Great Effusion of Blood? (Toronto, 2004), pp. 98–130; Gísli Pálsson, ‘Text,Life and Saga’, in Pálsson (ed.), From Sagas to Society, pp. 1–25; Sigurðsson, Chieftains andPower, pp. 17–38; Adolf Friðriksson and Orri Vésteinsson, ‘Creating a Past: A Historiography ofthe Settlement of Iceland’, in J.H. Barrett (ed.), Contact, Continuity and Collapse (Turnhout,2003), pp. 139–61; H. O’Donoghue, Old Norse–Icelandic Literature: A Short Introduction(Oxford, 2004), pp. 36–47; J. Byock, ‘History and the Sagas: The Effect of Nationalism’, inMcTurk (ed.), Companion to Old Norse–Icelandic Literature (Oxford, 2005), pp. 43–59; Byock,Viking Age Iceland, pp. 142–58; Ólason, ‘Family Sagas’, pp. 101–18; C. Callow, ‘Reconstructingthe Past in Medieval Iceland’, EME 14 (2006) pp. 304–24.

25 C. Callow, ‘Reconstructing the Past in Medieval Iceland’.26 J. Byock, P. Walker, J. Erlandson, P. Holck, D. Zori, M. Guðmundsson and M. Tveskov, ‘A

Viking-age Valley in Iceland: The Mosfell Archaeological Project’, Medieval Archaeology 49(2005), pp. 195–218, at pp. 211–14; G. Ólafsson, T. McGovern and K. Smith, ‘Outlaws ofSurtshellir Cave’, in J. Arneborg and B. Grønnow (eds), Dynamics of Northern Societies (Copen-hagen, 2006), pp. 395–404.

27 J.L. Byock, ‘The Skull and Bones in Egil’s Saga: A Viking, A Grave, and Paget’s Disease’, Viator24 (1993), pp. 23–50; Byock, ‘A Viking-age Valley in Iceland’, at pp. 198–9, 208. Contrast literaryand symbolic interpretations – ‘fictionalised biography written by an historian’: O’Donoghue,Old Norse–Icelandic Literature, at p. 52; Kaaren Grimstad, ‘The Giant as Heroic Model: TheCase of Egill and Starkaðr’, Scandinavian Studies 48 (1976), pp. 284–98; and M.C. Ross, ‘TheArt of Poetry and the Figure of the Poet in Egil’s Saga’, in J. Tucker (ed.), Sagas of Icelanders: ABook of Essays (New York, 1989), pp. 126–45.

28 Benedicktsson, ‘Landnámabók: Some Remarks’; Kristín Geirsdóttir, ‘Fáein alþýðleg orð’,Skírnir 153 (1979), pp. 5–41; Callow, ‘Reconstructing the Past’, pp. 300–3; J. Fox, ‘A RotineseDynastic Genealogy’, in T.O. Beidelman (ed.), The Translation of Culture (London, 1973), pp.37–77, at p. 38; L. Bohannan, ‘A Genealogical Charter’, Africa 22 (1952), pp. 301–15.



dimensional and may be entirely fictional inventions, while others such asFljótsdæla saga are likely to be accounts drawing on and embellishingearlier written and oral material.29

A scholarly consensus on the extent of historical information withiníslendingasögur has yet to be reached. The written texts which we possessderive at the earliest from the thirteenth century, with a few from thefourteenth and later centuries.30 Those scholars who believe íslendin-gasögur should be approached as primarily literary creations, view the sagawriter as ‘not inventing a story, but composing (putting together) . . . andtelling a story over which he had no ultimate authority’, built fromelements ‘to an extent historical in origin . . . influenced by myth andfolktale, and the craft of the gifted storyteller’.31 An alternative perspectiveemphasizes the need to integrate historical and literary perspectives ontextual development. Thus Gísli Sigurðsson viewed íslendingasögur asorally derived texts, in which most sagas derive from varied stories told toaudiences familiar with their characters. Occasionally contradictory onchronology or genealogy, they appear to be ‘a mixture of fact and fiction,a set of memories kept alive orally for several generations before beingcommitted to parchment’.32

Patrick Wormald referred to a ‘failure of nerve’ in historians’ reluctanceto tackle íslendingasögur as sources for early medieval Icelandic society.33

Both Byock and Miller took up this challenge, adopting a third stancewhich used íslendingasögur as sources for information about social pro-cesses in early medieval Iceland.34 Byock has taken a position that viewsthe family sagas as drawing on some core of oral historical information,adapted and embellished by their thirteenth-century authors.35 Miller didnot approach these sagas from the standpoint of historicity: his assump-tion was that literary materials can be used as sources for the social historyof the society which constructed them. From his analysis of Þorsteins þáttrstangarhöggs, Miller concluded that although íslendingasögur in somerespects reflected thirteenth-century concerns about the rapaciousness ofpowerful thirteenth-century chieftains, these sagas portrayed clearly dif-ferent conditions from those existing in the thirteenth century, with themuch more equitable distributions of wealth and power which we would

29 Ólason, ‘Family Sagas’, at p. 108. On Fljótsdæla saga see Gísli Sigurðsson, ‘Orality and Literacyin the Sagas of Icelanders’, at p. 295. A less sceptical view of Hrafnkels saga is set out by Clover,‘Icelandic Family Sagas (Íslendigasögur)’, at pp. 243–5.

30 Ólason, ‘Family Sagas’.31 Ólason, Dialogues with the Viking Age, pp. 19–20. For another primarily literary approach, see

Pálsson, ‘Text, Life and Saga’.32 Sigurðsson, ‘Orality and Literacy in the Sagas of Icelanders’, at p. 297.33 P. Wormald, ‘Viking Studies: Whence and Whither?’, in R.T. Farrell (ed.), The Vikings

(London, 1982), pp. 128–53, at p. 129.34 Miller, Bloodtaking; Byock, Viking Age Iceland.35 Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 143–58.

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expect in earlier centuries.36 (This could of course be in part the conse-quence of thirteenth-century chroniclers presenting an idealized view ofthe earlier period.)37

Current scholarly opinion about the nature and historical value ofíslendingasögur remains divided. Jón Viðar Sigurðsson has emphasized therange of consistent differences between samtíðarsögur and íslendingasögur,differences in the pattern of conflicts, in the position of goðorðsmenn,farmers and women, contending that íslendingasögur mirror the socialpattern of early Icelandic society.38 The patterns of conflict in íslendin-gasögur might reflect thirteenth-century authors’ perceptions of an earlierperiod of honour and stability. Yet Sigurðsson identified consistent lin-guistic differences, particularly in vocabulary, between the two sets ofsources. These particular differences in vocabulary are unlikely to be theresult of a coloured portrayal of the past, more likely the reflection of realchanges over time in linguistic usage within the society.39

It seems prudent therefore to act on the assumption that íslendingasögurcomprise a mixture of orally transmitted family histories, misremembered,distorted and embellished accounts, sometimes idealized and mixed withinvented material, in combinations that can only be disentangled – if at all– by careful historical research into each particular saga. As such thesupposed deaths and their contexts cannot be viewed as historical data tobe used for estimations of homicide rates. However, the evidence presentedabove suggests that there is good reason to view íslendingasögur, ‘with alltheir attendant problems as sources’, as valid information on probablepatterns of social relationship and conflict within an earlier period, situatedsomewhere between the tenth and early twelfth centuries.40

Examining homicide in samtíðarsögur and íslendingasögur

This paper attempts a quantitative approach to the examination of homi-cide in both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur. The reliability ofsamtíðarsögur as a source may also permit us, with some explicit assump-tions, to hazard some notion of likely homicide rates in Iceland aroundthe late twelfth to early thirteenth century. Miller believed that homiciderates ‘are not recoverable . . . since we know neither the number of homi-cides nor the number of people’.41 Yet population estimates and a set ofsources are indeed available. Population estimates for medieval Iceland

36 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–76. See also T. Andersson and W.I. Miller, Law and Literature inMedieval Iceland: Ljosvetninga Saga and Valla-Ljot’s Saga (Stanford, 1989).

37 Ólason, Dialogues with the Viking Age, pp. 195, 204–5.38 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 24–31.39 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 32–8.40 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 15–16, 17–38; Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 43–51.41 Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 303; Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 142–58.



vary, but all lie within an order of magnitude. Gunnar Karlsson hasprovided a valuable discussion of the assumptions behind differing esti-mates, most of which use Bishop Gizurr’s census of 38 ‘hundred’ (3,800or 4,560) taxpaying farmers around 1100.42 Early estimates of theeleventh–twelfth century population of 70–100,000 assumed a constantratio between taxpaying farmers and total population between 1097 and1703, a dubious assumption. An alternative approach has assumed theearly medieval population could not have exceeded the eighteenth-century population of around 50,000. A third approach, attempting toestimate population based on the floor area of excavated farms, suggestedsome 70,000 people around 1100.43 Karlsson’s minimum estimate of40,000 assumes only 5,000 households in total, with an average of 8individuals including family and farmhands.44 On balance, it seemsappropriate to hypothesize a possible population in the range from40,000 to 70,000 during the twelfth century.45

Definitions of homicide vary to some degree, but criminological,anthropological and historical studies show considerable consensusaround the following formulation: interpersonal assaults deliberatelydirected against another person outside the context of warfare, whichprove fatal.46 Homicide rates, calculated using comparable definitions,vary hugely between different societies, and can vary significantly overtime within a society. The highest recent Icelandic rates were exceededmore than tenfold in the United States; over a hundredfold in sometwentieth-century subsistence societies (see Appendix, Table 1).47 Thesevariations are only partially related to differences in definition, reporting,

42 Gunnar Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years: History of a Marginal Society (London, 2000), pp. 44–51.Vésteinsson has discussed differing interpretations of Gizurr’s 1097 census: Christianization ofIceland, p. 11.

43 Jón Steffensen, ‘Islands folkemængde gennem tiderne’, Medicinsk Forum 16 (1963), pp. 129–52.44 Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, p. 45.45 No estimate of population has been made in relation to the íslendingasögur data, as this is

unsuitable for estimating homicide rates. Projecting population estimates backward into thetenth–eleventh centuries would however be uncertain given the lack of scholarly consensus onlikely population during and following the settlement period. See Jón Jóhannesson, A Historyof the Old Icelandic Commonwealth: Íslendinga saga (Manitoba, 1974), pp. 31–4; K. Hastrup,Culture and History in Medieval Iceland: An Anthropological Analysis of Structure and Change(Oxford, 1985), pp. 169–75; Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 44–51.

46 M. Daly and M. Wilson, Homicide (New York, 1988), pp. 13–15; C. Boehm, Blood Revenge(Pennsylvania, 1987), pp. 66, 89, 192–201; J. Given, Society and Homicide in Thirteenth CenturyEngland (Stanford, 1977), pp. 38–40.

47 G.H. Gudjonsson and H. Petursson, ‘Some Criminological and Psychiatric Aspects of Homi-cide in Iceland’, Medicine, Science and the Law 22 (1982), pp. 91–8; Daly and Wilson, Homicide,pp. 275–91. Differing studies use slightly different, but overlapping definitions. The modernIcelandic data, for example, included both intentional homicide, and violence and negligenceresulting in death (whether prosecuted or not), but excluded automobile fatalities, andinfanticide.

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the availability of weapons, or medical treatment, although difficulties doarise when studying some underdeveloped societies as to when it isappropriate to exclude events which might be classed as ‘warfare’.48 Thepresent study has therefore avoided sampling those periods in the thir-teenth century when many of the deaths related in samtíðarsögur occurredin battles between groups of significant size. Homicide in this studymeans the death of any adult (12 or over) by another, by intent oraccidentally in the course of conflict, including games.49

Both samtíðarsögur and íslendingasögur are essentially unrepresentativesources, focusing on the lives and vicissitudes of leading families.50 Howthen should one surmount the challenges in using these sources toexamine homicide systematically? Sources were selected which couldprovide examples of homicides from as wide a cross-section of society aspossible, and could be framed by definable time periods and geographicallimits. The earlier and later periods present differing selection issues.Íslendingasögur relate homicides committed by a range of individuals.Sources describing the East Fjords have a much clearer geographicalfocus, and the majority were written before 1300.51 A total of 105 homi-cides related within the East Quarter of Iceland in Landnámabók, Íslen-dingabók and íslendingasögur, supposedly situated between 930–1030,were used to provide the íslendingasögur sample for this study.52 Theyprovide insights into possible patterns of homicide and vengeance duringan undetermined period prior to the late twelfth to early thirteenthcentury.

48 Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 38–9; Boehm, Blood Revenge, p. 194; Daly and Wilson,Homicide, p. 275.

49 Infanticide was also present in Iceland at this time: E. Christiansen, The Norsemen in the VikingAge (Oxford, 2002), pp. 39–40. However, infanticide is not included in comparable studies ofhomicide rates (see below note 87), and was not evident in this sample. All homicide rates hereand in the following discussion are reported per annum per 100,000 total population.

50 See Vésteinsson, ‘A Divided Society’, at pp. 122–30.51 Ólason, ‘Family Sagas’.52 Where similar events were described in different sources, only one was used. For six incidents

an estimate of deaths was necessary, and in one instance deaths were adjusted to compensate forpoetic licence: see Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 319, note 16; Kjalnesinga saga, ed. Jóhannes Halldórs-son, ÍF 14 (Reykjavík, 1959), p. 353. All recorded victims were male. The number of unrecordedfemale victims is thought to be small (see discussion below). These 105 homicides are referencedat: Íslendingabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson, ÍF 1 (Reykjavík, 1968), p. 8; Landnámabók, ed. JakobBenediktsson, ÍF 1 (Reykjavík, 1968), pp. 292, 302, 328, 330, 333; Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhan-nesson, ÍF 11 (Reykjavík, 1950), pp. 11–18, 23–63, 69–73, 104–31, 142–80, 185, 198–210, 217–48,297–320; Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson, ÍF 12 (Reykjavík, 1954), pp. 209, 220,291, 417–8, 430–5; Kjalnesinga saga, ÍF 14, pp. 341–79; Íslendingabók, Kristni Saga, trans. S.Grønlie (London, 2006), p. 5; The Book of Settlements: Landnámabók, trans. H. Pálsson and P.Edwards (Winnipeg, 1972), pp. 111, 115, 124–6; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, pp. 99–206,421–36; IV, pp. 307–8, 313–33, 336–7, 359–78, 381–99, 436–41, 443, 447–59; V, pp. 265–79.Interestingly, the geographical distribution of these homicides in íslendingasögur broadlymatches the likely population, excepting fewer homicides in the well-populated lower Fljótsdal:Austfirðinga sögur, ÍF 11, p. 218; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, p. 381. Compare theland-takes at settlement, Byock, Viking Age Iceland, p. 85.



Samtíðarsögur describe a period of major political change betweenaround 1100 and 1264. In the course of this period individual goðorð werereplaced by domains or ríki dominated by a single major player whocontrolled all the goðorð in the area. The timing of this process is con-troversial, but it almost certainly took place at different times in differentareas of the country: in the north and the west it took place between 1180and 1220.53 From 1220 these stórgoðar (powerful chieftains) increasinglyintrigued and fought with each other whilst becoming involved with theefforts of the Norwegian king to control Iceland. Consequently, manysamtíðarsögur focus almost exclusively on the storgoðar and say little abouthomicide more generally within the society. However, Guðmundar sagadýra, Íslendinga saga, Prestsaga Guðmundar góða and Hrafns saga Sveinb-jarnarsonar overlap in providing some detail about both small as well aslarger conflicts in the Northern and Western Quarters in the late twelfthto early thirteenth century, at the very period that ríki were being forgedin these areas.54 These provide a set of 24 homicides from 1184–1204 forthe Eyjafjörður-Reykjadalur district, which have been used to estimatehomicide rates, and a further 6 homicides between 1204–14 inArnarfjörður and Dýrafjörður, which have been combined with theEyjafjörður sample to examine sequences and processes of conflict involv-ing homicide.55 The numerous deaths after 1205 in the Eyjafjörður districtoccurred almost exclusively in the battles between Kolbeinn Tumason(and, after his death, his brother Arnórr) with Bishop Guðmundr overthe extent of clerical authority. These would give a very skewed sample forexamining homicide more generally, and this period has therefore notbeen included in the quantitative analysis.56 To provide a basis for someestimate of homicide rates, a significant sample within a defined geo-graphical district is preferable: the 24 homicides within the Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur area over the two decades 1184–1204 provided such a

53 Jón Viðar Sigurðsson has argued that this development was well under way by the early twelfthcentury: Frá goðorðum til ríkja. Þróun goðavalds á 12. og 13 öld (Reykjavík, 1989); Sigurðsson,Chieftains and Power, pp. 62–83. Other scholars perceive this concentration beginning only atthe end of the twelfth century: Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 72–82; Byock, MedievalIceland, pp. 1–13; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 8–9 and p. 15 including note 6;Lúðvík Ingvarsson, Goðorð og goðorðsmenn (Egilstöðum, 1986), I, pp. 257–61.

54 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 13, 66, 88–93; Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 74–6.55 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 115–279; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 115–73; II,

pp. 91–226. The 24 homicides in Eyjafjörð–Reykjadal are referenced at Sturlunga saga, ed.Jóhannesson, I, pp. 167, 170–5, 190, 194, 198–9, 203, 207, 210–11; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew,II, pp. 155–6, 159–64, 181, 186, 190–1, 196, 200, 203–4. The 6 homicides in Arnarfjörð andDýrafjörð are at Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 216, 218, 221, 226–8; Sturlunga saga, ed.McGrew, II, pp. 212, 214, 218, 223–5.

56 For example, 28 men died during just two battles between Kolbeinn Tumason and BishopGuðmundr’s supporters in 1208: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 244–54; Sturlunga saga,ed. McGrew, I, pp. 134–45.

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sample.57 Based on the 1097 tithe census and the relative stability of farmsettlement subsequently, Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur probably hostedsome 550–650 of some 3,800–4,560 Icelandic households around 1200.58

In order to understand the processes involved in vengeance, homicideswere analysed not as individual disputes, but as sequences of initial andconsequential homicides.59 All homicides within the sample districts weredocumented, distinguishing initial and consequential homicides, perpe-trators and victims’ relationships, apparent motives and consequences.60

The most significant challenge in estimation of homicide rates (for thetwelfth- to early thirteenth-century period) besides an assessment ofpopulation, is estimating the frequency of homicides not present in thesources. What other homicides might not appear in samtíðarsögur? First,the sagas report the deaths of men. How frequently were women alsovictims of homicide? The likelihood that this was infrequent is evidencedby the sources. Women were sometimes injured (as during the frustratedassault on Sturla Sighvatsson at Sauðafell in 1229). Yet when Þorgrímralikarl, reminded of his duty to avenge his father-in-law, raided the farmof Hákon Þórðarson with fourteen others after money and vengeance,they directed no violence at Hákon’s wife despite a torrent of abuse.When they later found and killed Hákon and his allies, Þorgrímr orderedthat no one should attack women or children.61 During a domesticdispute over sexual behaviour, Ingimundr killed not his partner Þorgerðr,with whom he had been fighting, but Þorgerðr’s son-in-law who argued

57 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 115–244; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 115–33; II, pp.91–226.

58 In 1097, either 3,800 or 4,560 householders were assessed for tithes throughout Iceland. Some1,200 or 1,440 (31.5%) lived in the Northern Quarter (Íslendingabók, ed. Benediktsson, ÍF 1, p.23; Íslendingabók, trans. Grønlie, p. 12; Vésteinsson, The Christianization of Iceland, p. 11). In1200 Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur may be assumed to have been the site of one-third to half ofall farms in the Northern Quarter, based on geography, likely population density, and theprobable presence of at least five goðorð in the district, at least three held by ÞorvaldrGuðmundarson and one each by Ögmundr sneis and Hallr Kleppjárnsson (Sigurðsson, Chief-tains and Power, pp. 39–41, 80, 101–7; Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 128–32). These figuressuggest Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur held 11–16% (420–730) of Icelandic households around1200. In 1700, 656 farms were situated in Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur, of 4,014 throughout Iceland(16.3%). This range of figures suggests Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur in 1200 were thus a likelydomicile for somewhat less than 16% of the population, or around 550–650 households.

59 This approach to understanding the processes involved in vengeance (also adopted bySigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 156–70) is clearly preferable to Heusler’s analysis ofindividual conflicts (Heusler, Zum isländischen Fehdewesen in der Sturlungzeit; and Das Strafre-cht der Isländersagas). Sigurðsson however does not distinguish samtíðarsögur from íslendin-gasögur in his analysis.

60 The analysis distinguished individuals identified as holders of goðorð together with theirfirst-degree relatives (father, brother, son) from other farmers, merchants, farmhands, servantsand slaves. Infanticide was not evident in this sample: see notes 49 and 87.

61 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 195–9, 325–8; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 224–7;II, pp. 187–91.



with him that Þorgerðr should be ‘free to . . . stay wherever she pleases’.62

Miller also concluded that women were rarely victims of homicide.63

Excepting one or two instances of summary justice amongst theirown þingmenn (followers), which might not have been related insamtíðarsögur, few homicides initiated by the goðorðsmenn themselves intheir districts will have gone unmentioned, precisely because thegoðorðsmenn and their rivals were the theme of these accounts. Thedifficulty lies in estimating homicide amongst farmers, servants anditinerant craftsmen and traders.64

In disputes amongst followers of a single goðorðsmaðr, how far mightdisputes about insults, debts, women or property have escalated to thepoint of homicide? Although the sources are thin on such examples, itseems likely that goðorðsmenn would have been drawn in early as brokersor arbiters of justice, before most such disputes became lethal. Resolvingdisputes between his own þingmenn was probably vital to the honour ofa goðorðsmaðr.65 Indeed in both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur, almostall homicides appear to have occurred between individuals with kinsmenor allegiances across two or more chieftains. Elsewhere in early medievalsocieties there is evidence that men of substance, although they mightpursue violence themselves, had a clear self-interest in minimizing hos-tilities involving their followers.66 The better off were predominatelyinvolved in early fourteenth-century English homicide, on account ofdisputes over land.67 In nineteenth-century Corsica, whilst homicideinvolved artisans, farmers and labourers, it was rarely carried on by suchpeople, because of the social as well as financial costs of weapons, pro-tection and social support.68 Amongst households sharing allegiance to acommon goðorðsmaðr, therefore, disputes are likely to have been mini-mized, homicide not frequent, and vengeance restricted.

How many homicides not recorded in the sources might have occurredbetween farmers and others whose allegiances or kin were linked todifferent goðorðsmenn? We know that goðorðsmenn were involved rapidlyin serious disputes through examples in the sources where settlement wasreached without the dispute escalating to the point of homicide.69 Given

62 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 171–2; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, p. 161. Whetherwomen were frequently victims is discussed further in the next section.

63 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 205–10. See also notes 49 and 87 regarding infanticide.64 I have added a further 50% to allow for possible homicides by goðorðsmenn by way of ‘summary

justice’, not recorded in samtíðarsögur. For examples of homicides by ordinary men, seeSturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 172–3, 210; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 161–2,203.

65 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, p. 157.66 Hyams, ‘Feud and the State’.67 B. Hanawalt, Crime and Conflict in English Communities 1300–1348 (London, 1979), pp. 131–2.68 Wilson, Feuding, Conflict and Banditry, pp. 53–7.69 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 181–3; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 171–3.

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this involvement of goðorðsmenn in monitoring conflict and enforcinglegal action or settlement of others’ disputes, we should presume thatthey were rapidly involved in almost every dispute involving homicide,whether or not it gained a mention in samtíðarsögur. And indeed thereseems no reason to suppose that homicide between followers of differentgoðorðsmenn would have been either more or less frequent amongst menwhose fate was remembered through samtíðarsögur, or amongst thosedoubly unlucky enough to die without such a mention. Such homicidesas do receive mention were those which reflected significantly on theleading protagonists, or contributed to an otherwise significant dispute.70

Other less significant homicides involving rival goðorðsmenn will oftenhave been resolved between their goðorðsmenn through compensation oroutlawry. Therefore the simplest method for estimating unreportedhomicides committed by farmers, servants and others would appear to bein proportion to household numbers.71

Table 2 (see Appendix) shows how these principles have been used toestimate possible late twelfth to early thirteenth-century homicide rates.The patterns of homicide and vengeance in the data for both thesamtíðarsögur and íslendingasögur samples are shown in Tables 3–5(Appendix), and discussed below.72

Medieval Icelandic homicide in context

The total of 24 homicides in the Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur district for the20-year period 1184–1204, yields a homicide rate between 24–62 per100,000 per annum (see the discussion above, and Table 2, for numericalestimates involved). The homicide rates indicated, even if these are sig-nificant underestimates, are not high in a comparative context (seeTable 1). The present estimates show a large degree of overlap with otherrural and urban medieval estimates available. They suggest that despitethe prevalence of vengeance as a legitimate social process, late twelfth-

70 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 174–5; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 163–5.71 Analysis above for Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur based on the 1097 census (see note 58 above)

suggests a potential outer range of between 420–730 households (11% of 3,800 to 16% of 4,560;mid-point 575). Probable stability in farm sites and population between 1097 and 1700 (656farms) lends support for a figure close to or slightly above the mid-range (575), or some 600households around 1200 (Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 79–83, 101–7; O. Vésteinsson,‘Central Areas in Iceland’, in Arneborg and Grønnow (eds), Dynamics of Northern Societies, pp.307–22, at p. 315). Guðmundar saga dýra and Íslendinga saga refer to some 150 individuals(excluding individuals within the same household) within Eyjafjörð and Reykjadal at this time.The sources thus appear to reference approximately one quarter of all households. Recordedhomicides by farmers and others were therefore multiplied by a factor of four for this estimate.

72 Note that the estimates for homicides rates are based on data from 1184–1204 for the Eyjafjörð–Reykjadal district, whereas the patterns and sequences of conflict have been analysed using thecombined data from both Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur from 1184–1204, and Arnarfjörður andDýrafjörður from 1204–14.



century Iceland was probably not as violent a society as a qualitativereading of these sagas might suggest, even in those areas where conflictwas still endemic between chieftains trying to build local control.

Differences between likely Icelandic homicide rates and those of othersocieties can be related to three features of medieval Icelandic society: thelegitimacy of homicide; frequency of conflict between unrelated males;and social expectations promoting the use of conciliation to resolve orterminate potentially lethal conflicts. These homicide rates are an order ofmagnitude lower than homicide rates in a variety of other societies wherenotions of ‘payment’, ‘getting even’, and vengeance have been legiti-mized.73 Before reflecting on other medieval data, therefore, some briefcross-cultural comparisons are in order.

Martin Daly and Margo Wilson approached homicidal behaviourfrom an evolutionary perspective, with violence and homicide ‘the rare,fatal consequences of a ubiquitous competitive struggle among men forstatus and respect’ and control over women’s reproduction.74 They attrib-uted the enormous variation in homicide rates between societies toopportunities for conflict between unrelated males, and differences in thesocial legitimacy of violence.75 One might then have expected the rate ofmedieval Icelandic homicide to be especially high, given its legitimacyjudged both by ‘law’ and by common social practice for a variety ofinsults including raiding property, actual assault, and sexual insult.76

The highest homicide rates documented are amongst the Gebusi andthe Tauade of New Guinea. Honour, ‘face’ and shame were so importantto the latter that they would often avoid any greeting or farewell, tocircumvent the possibility of a humiliating rebuff. In this highly com-petitive society another’s gain was typically perceived as one’s own loss;rage and violence were highly legitimated reactions to insult. As inmedieval Iceland, vengeance and compensation for insult (whether theft,

73 See especially C.R. Hallpike, Bloodshed and Vengeance in the Papuan Mountains: The Generationof Conflict in Tauade Society (Oxford, 1977), pp. 188–95, 245–9; J. Nash, ‘Death as a Way of Life:The Increasing Resort to Homicide in a Maya Indian Community’, American Anthropologist 69(1967), pp. 455–70; H. Rose, ‘Lethal Aspects of Urban Violence: An Overview’, in H. Rose(ed.), Lethal Aspects of Urban Violence (Lexington, 1979).

74 Daly and Wilson, Homicide, pp. 34–5. See also N. Chagnon (ed.), Evolutionary Biology andHuman Social Behavior (North Scituate, 1979), pp. 86–126, 398–401. An evolutionary perspec-tive predicts few homicides amongst blood relatives. In this sample, with one exception, noblood relative was killed. The killing of foster fathers was portrayed twice, that of affines onlyonce: Íslendingabók, ed. Benediktsson, ÍF 1, p. 8; Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp.52, 200; Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Sveinsson, ÍF 12, pp. 416–18, 430–1; Íslendingabók, ed. Grønlie,p. 5; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, pp. 198, 205–7; IV, pp. 328, 436.

75 Daly and Wilson, Homicide, pp. 123–36, 146, 231–45, 293–7.76 Grágás: Lagasafn íslenska þjóðveldisins, ed. G. Karlsson, K. Sveinsson and M. Árnason (Reyk-

javík, 1997), pp. 209–64; Laws of Early Iceland: Grágás, The Codex Regius of Grágás, ed. A.Dennis, P. Foote and R. Perkins (Winnipeg, 1980), pp. 139–69; Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 61–7,189–93. The extent to which this body of law described actual practice is debatable: seeVésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 4–7.

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or sexual liaison with a spouse) were both referred to as ‘payment’.Critically, however, restraints on homicide in the form of arbitration orconciliation were highly unusual. Tauade cognitive models emphasizedbipartite relationships, rather than social or kin-group membership, andconsequentially the social mechanisms for conciliation or negotiationwere minimal.77

The present estimates of homicide rates for medieval Iceland arebroadly comparable with twentieth-century !Kung homicide. Amongstthe !Kung, underlying resentments in a culture of banter occasionallyescalated into deadly fights and feuds. Despite obvious differences, par-ticularly the absence of mediating authority figures, there are strikingresonances with features of Icelandic conflict in the salience of repartee,the way sexual insult typically led to escalation, and the presence of lethalvengeance after a long delay.78

A further cross-cultural comparison is with twentieth- and twenty-first-century urban ghettoes. Whereas in many cultures including con-temporary Iceland, homicide is highly illegitimate and there are manylegitimate alternatives to violence, high homicide rates are frequentamongst some deprived urban populations.79 Marvin Wolfgang andHarold Rose have noted that insult, jealousy and disagreementsover property were precipitants for a vast majority of these lethaldisputes. Many of them, between acquaintances, were generated by thevicissitudes of competitive alliances.80 Elijah Anderson has shown how acentral feature of these ‘honour’ cultures is competitive socialization in anenvironment demanding both the ability to defend oneself, and access toothers who will provide support in the event of a challenge: ‘fundamen-tally, this task involves managing his self-image, which is shaped by whathe thinks others are thinking of him in relation to his peers’.81 Fascinat-ingly, Anderson noted that one way to acquire status may be open seizureof others’ possessions – to enhance one’s own worth through violation ofothers. Such a close analogy with the function of raiding in medievalIceland is arresting.82 The notable contrast again, however, is the paucity

77 Hallpike, Bloodshed and Vengeance, pp. 188–95, 245–9. From Hallpike’s data, Knauft calculateda homicide rate: B. Knauft, ‘Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies: Homicideamongst the Gebusi of New Guinea’, Current Anthropology 28 (1987), pp. 457–500. CompareMiller, Bloodtaking, p. 182.

78 R.B. Lee, The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (Cambridge, 1979), pp.370–5, 397–400.

79 R. Roth, American Homicide (Cambridge, 2009), pp. 455–68.80 M.E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia, 1958), pp. 24–7, 65–70, 188–210.

Rose, ‘Lethal Aspects of Urban Violence’, p. 10.81 E. Anderson, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (New York,

1999), at pp. 72–3.82 W. Miller, ‘Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid: Case Studies in the Negotiation and Classification of

Exchange in Medieval Iceland’, Speculum 61 (1986), pp. 18–50.



of conciliation mechanisms in urban ghettoes where neither kinship,marriage, nor local political structures provide the impetus to conflictresolution present in medieval Iceland.

What emerges from comparison with previous studies of medievalhomicide rates, the earliest of which relate to thirteenth-centuryEngland? Ted Gurr reviewed trends in English homicide rates, includingestimates for medieval England by Given, Hair, Hammer andHanawalt.83 P.E. Hair estimated Bedfordshire homicide rates between1200–76 of 10–40 per 100,000 per annum.84 James Given, studying thesame period, calculated yearly rural homicide rates ranging from 9–23 per100,000 in southern England, ascribing higher homicide rates to areaswhere manorial control was weak.85 Given’s urban estimates for thisperiod were 16 per 100,000 per annum for Norwich, and 35 for Oxford:Given’s estimates for both Norwich and Oxford exceed their rural sur-roundings.86 Other authors’ urban homicide rates for the fourteenthcentury, again measured per 100,000 per annum, were all substantiallyhigher: 36–52 for London, 60–120 for Oxford, 68–152 for Florence.87

These rural medieval estimates range from 9–40, and the urban medievalestimates range from 16–152 per 100,000 per annum.88

Two provisional conclusions emerge from this analysis. First, medievalurban homicide rates appear substantially higher than rural estimates.Second, the present late twelfth-century Icelandic estimates are compa-rable in magnitude or only slightly higher than previous rural medievalhomicide estimates.

Daly and Wilson believed homicide rates reflected the frequency ofaltercations over resources and honour between unrelated men.89 Suchencounters are more likely in urban than rural settings, and in medievalIceland were limited by the absence of village or urban settlements, thelimited development of trade and the sheer low density of population.

83 T.R. Gurr, ‘Historical Trends in Violent Crime: A Critical Review of the Evidence’, Crime andJustice: An Annual Review of Research 3 (1981), pp. 295–353; Given, Society and Homicide; P.E.H.Hair, ‘Deaths from Violence in Britain: A Tentative Secular Survey’, Population Studies 25 (1971),pp. 5–24; C. Hammer, ‘Patterns of Homicide in a Medieval University Town: Fourteenth-Century Oxford’, Past and Present 78 (1978), pp. 3–23; B. Hanawalt, ‘Violent Death inFourteenth- and Early Fifteenth-Century England’, Comparative Studies in Society and History18 (1976), pp. 297–320.

84 Hair, ‘Deaths from Violence’, p. 18.85 Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 15–25, 35–7 (and Errata), 150–4. Norfolk had the lowest,

Oxfordshire the highest rates. The ranges are dependent on population estimates adopted.86 Given’s lower values for Bristol and London, based only on two years’ data, are probably

unreliable: Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 84–5, 175.87 Hanawalt, ‘Violent Death’, pp. 301–2; Hammer, ‘Patterns of Homicide’, pp. 11–13; M. Becker,

‘Changing Patterns of Violence and Justice in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Florence’,Comparative Studies in Society and History 18 (1976), pp. 281–96, at p. 287. Infanticide is absentor omitted from all these studies.

88 Excluding the estimates based on two years’ data, in Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 84–5, 175.89 Daly and Wilson, Homicide, pp. 231–5.

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Moreover, both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur suggest that homicidewas almost always pursuant to an already existing dispute, often antici-pated, and rarely an impulsive act between strangers in response to someinsult. The picture that emerges is therefore very different from CarlHammer’s supposition that in fourteenth-century Oxford ‘sharptongues, quick tempers and strong drink’ led to a preponderance ofhomicides.90 Hammer’s inferences about Oxford may be exaggerated.Motivations for homicides in the sagas may have been distorted by thosewho related them, to inflate the sense of rational purpose and mask theinfluence of impulsivity. Yet the very different environments suggest thesedifferences may well be real.91 In íslendingasögur, when Oddr killed a guestwho had first abused his son in some games and then insulted him, orwhen Helgi Droplaugarson killed Björn for refusing to pay compensationafter fathering a child by another man’s wife, these may have beenimpulsive acts in the course of argument. Yet judged by these accounts,just as Þorsteinn Þorfinnsson killed his ex-partner Einarr Þórissonbecause of a history of ill-treatment, slander and wife-stealing, many ofthese fatalities probably occurred during premeditated confrontationsresulting from a catalogue of resentments.92 In medieval Iceland, aninjury or death brought risk not only to the individual, but to their wholefamily. Indeed, Boehm’s emphasis on the importance of considered indi-vidual decision-making resonates with the ambivalence about aggressiveaction often evident in these sagas.93

The broad similarity between twelfth-century Icelandic and thirteenth-century English homicide rates belies significant differences in homicidepatterns. The most striking difference is in the involvement of women. Nowomen appear either as perpetrators or victims of homicide amongst the135 deaths in the two Icelandic samples. In thirteenth-century Englandwomen committed nearly 10% of all homicides and a quarter of theirvictims were women. Nearly 20% of all victims were female. Male killingof a wife or lover constituted about 5% of all homicides.94 The absence ofwomen as perpetrators and victims in these Icelandic samples thereforeeither reflects a silence in the accounts given by the saga-tellers, or aprofound difference in the perception and role of women. The latterinterpretation receives support from Miller’s examination of rape and thefate of women in Icelandic conflict: Miller concluded that women,

90 Hammer, ‘Patterns of Homicide’, p. 20.91 See also C. Wickham, ‘Problems of Comparing Rural Societies in Early Medieval Western

Europe’, Transactions of Royal Historical Society, 6th series 2 (1992), pp. 221–46.92 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 13, 52, 152, 185; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV,

pp. 307, 328, 363, 443.93 Boehm, ‘Ambivalence and Compromise’; Boehm, Blood Revenge, pp. 103–6, 147–50.94 Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 48, 141, 147, 171–2.



although sometimes raped, were rarely objects of lethal attack.95 Theexample of Ingimundr and Þorgerðr referred to above supports thisconclusion.96 By contrast, in thirteenth-century England many womenwere killed in the course of robbery with homicide, something whichwould certainly have achieved neither gain nor honour in Iceland.97

There is another difference. In medieval England, powerful local indi-viduals were of course central to the administration of justice and itsdesserts.Their role in executing criminals was however embedded in a legalprocess in which they were conceptually agents rather than principals.98

Icelandic höfðingjar (chieftains), however, typically negotiated or executedtheir own justice directly, before disputes reached the legal processes ofþings, remaining principals in the conceptualization as well as the imple-mentation of ‘justice’ from the eleventh to the thirteenth century.99

Homicide and retribution in íslendingasögur: balanceor competition?

The 105 homicides in the íslendingasögur sample comprised 25 separatehomicide sequences. The deaths portrayed in these sagas were not theoutcome of impulsive encounters between young men, but they wereconsistent with Daly and Wilson’s vision of homicide as the rare conse-quence of competitive struggle over status, resources and women’s repro-duction. One source of friction leading to homicide might be supposedto have been competition for shrinking resources, yet this sample suggestsotherwise.100 Only two of twenty-five initial killings were motivated byconflict over pasture, sheep or horses; in addition one was motivated byoutright theft and one in the course of debt recovery.101 By contrast thecommonest causes of initial homicides (often following earlier provoca-tions) were retribution over either sexual transgression or insult, or physi-cal injury or insult (see Table 3).102 Following nearly half of the initialhomicides, no lethal vengeance was delivered; four sequences ended aftera single vengeance attack, and only seven killings led to a lethal feud

95 Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 205–10.96 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 171–2; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, p. 161.97 Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 106, 168.98 See for instance P. Wormald, The Making of English Law: King Alfred to the Twelfth Century, 1

Legislation and its Limits (Oxford, 1999), pp. 126, 306–7, 324–5.99 This process is neatly illustrated by Guðmundr dýri’s actions following the death of Hrafn

Brandsson, discussed below: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 168–70; Sturlunga saga, ed.McGrew, II, pp. 157–60. See also Byock, Viking Age Iceland, p. 349.

100 On the environmental context, see for example: T.H. McGovern et al., ‘Landscapes of Settle-ment in Northern Iceland’, American Anthropologist 109 (2007), pp. 27–51.

101 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 24, 30, 198–210, 217–18; Complete Sagas, ed,Hreinsson, IV, pp. 314, 316, 381, 436.

102 See for example Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 13, 145–6, 152, 185; Complete Sagas,ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp. 307, 359, 363, 443.

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(Table 4). These conflicts thus did not conform to a simple pattern ofvengeance. This was not because deaths were requited with money: onlyone sequence ended with compensation alone. Rather, the powerfulbrazened the consequences, whereas the powerless fled. Fear and power,rather than notions of requital and payment, appear to have been thesocial processes at work in this society, if we accept the descriptions inthese accounts.

The most striking feature evident from the íslendingasögur analysis isthe different outcomes for homicides committed by goðorðsmenn (and themore powerful farmers, stórbændur), or by other men (Table 5).103 Thushomicides initiated by farmers did not usually lead to feuds: these con-flicts ended swiftly with the flight of the perpetrator, payment of com-pensation, or death through a single act of vengeance, typically carriedout by a goðorðsmaðr or his family. Njáls saga records one HrapprÖrgumleiðarson who had killed Örlygr Ölvisson, grandson of Hróðgeirhvíta (Hrodgeir the White). Hrappr expected that ‘the men ofVápnafjörður will be taking action over it’. Without the resources or thebacking to defend himself, he fled to Norway.104 The fate of ÞorsteinnÞorfinnsson also neatly illustrates several of these features: Þorsteinnkilled his former business partner Einarr for stealing his wife. He fledIceland, but his two brothers were killed in a vengeance attack led by theson of his victim’s goðorðsmaðr. Although he returned to Iceland five yearslater, Þorsteinn did not attempt to avenge his brothers: he sought settle-ment instead.105 Vápnfirðinga saga tells of a farmer who killed his neigh-bour in a dispute over grazing rights; outlawed, he failed to leave thedistrict, stole sheep and consequentially was killed by the young grandsonof a local goðorðsmaðr.106 The story is told to illustrate the temperament ofthe young Brodd-Helgi – but it also illustrates the finality of such justice:as a farmer without support he is first outlawed, then killed.

Chieftains in íslendingasögur typically became involved in lethal justice(and often, subsequent vengeance) when an initial homicide was pursuedby a goðorðsmaðr or his son as a vengeance killing. After ÞorsteinnÞorfinnsson had killed Einarr for stealing his wife, Einarr’s fatherapproached his brother-in-law Þorgils, son of a goðorðsmaðr, for help ‘tochase Þorsteinn down’. Þorgils agreed, leading not only to the intended

103 For clarity, in the quantitative analysis, homicides were categorized by whether they werecommitted by goðorðsmenn (or their first-degree blood relatives), or by others – whetherstorbændr, bændr, merchants, farmhands or slaves.

104 Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Sveinsson, ÍF 12, p. 209; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, p. 99.105 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 7–16; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp.

304–9.106 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 24–6; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, pp. 99,

314.



victims’ death (Þorsteinn’s two brothers), but to Þorgils’s own death.107

These examples support Jón Viðar Sigurðsson’s interpretation, thatgoðorðsmenn and their families acted not as mediators, but as participantsin these disputes.108 To strengthen their prestige as effective protectors oftheir þingmenn, they took on the role of executioners of lethal vengeance.Only as a consequence did they become parties to feuds which took thelives of their own family members. In this respect there is a markedcontrast with the later sample, where goðorðsmenn more commonly inter-vened in disputes between farmers by pursuing negotiation and settle-ment.109 Such differences bear upon debates over how far íslendingasögurrepresent a retelling of existing oral material, how far a projection ofthirteenth-century concerns over the behaviour of a thirteenth-centuryaristocracy: idealization of character there may be, but almost certainlynot in the frequency of flight versus vengeance.110

Chieftains or their families on occasion killed individuals withoutentailing vengeance (and even allegedly without compensation) wherethey were confident of power, or where their victims’ influence andsupport was simply insufficient to retaliate or take legal action.111 Rarely iníslendingasögur did men who were not goðorðsmenn brazen the conse-quences and survive. Brandkrossa þáttur relates how Oddr, the farmerwho killed a guest for insulting him and his son, expressed fury when hewas prosecuted, sentenced to forfeit his farm and leave the district(heraðsekr) for this killing. Only a powerful farmer (stórbóndi) such asOddr, ‘said to be an important person’ would brave prosecution, andexpress fury at such an outcome. Stórbóndi and aspiring goðorðsmaðr

107 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 7–16; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp.304–9.

108 Sigurðsson in Chieftains and Power, pp. 103–4 and 164, takes issue with Byock and Miller: W.I.Miller, ‘Avoiding Legal Judgement: The Submission of Legal Disputes to Arbitration in Medi-eval Iceland’, American Journal of Legal History 28 (1984), pp. 95–134, at p. 101; Byock, MedievalIceland, p. 5.

109 Contrast Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 7–16 and pp. 24–6 (Complete Sagas, ed.Hreinsson, IV, pp. 304–9 and p. 314) with Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 170–1, 174–5,209–10 (Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 159–160, 164–5, 203–4). Interestingly, Þorgils sagaok Hafliði, in the early twelfth century, describes a dispute whose patterns perhaps lie betweenthose of íslendingasögur and the later twelfth- and early thirteenth-century disputes. BothHafliði and Þorgils became involved in organizing the killing of men working for their rival, butonly as a result of their already developing rivalry. The prosecution of these cases led tolarge-scale armed confrontations, negotiation and mediation of the type that occurred fre-quently during the thirteenth century: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 12–50; Sturlungasaga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 25–70.

110 For discussion of differing thirteenth-century perceptions of the past, see for example E.P.Durrenberger and J. Wilcox, ‘Humor as a Guide to Social Change: Bandamanna saga andHeroic Values’, in Pálsson (ed.), From Sagas to Society, pp. 111–23; Ólason, Dialogues with theViking Age, pp. 195 and 204–5; Bragason, ‘Sagas of Contemporary History’, at pp. 436–40; andSigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, p. 31.

111 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 105, 217–18, Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, p.381; V, p. 265.

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Helgi Droplaugarson, involved in the death of his own stepfather, wassimilarly outlawed. Helgi disregarded the verdict for two or three yearsbefore meeting his death. He did not flee because he could count onsupport; and indeed his death was avenged by his brother and his asso-ciates.112 Chieftains who initiated homicidal action might escape justicealtogether, although most became embroiled in feud. Amongst bothgoðorðsmenn and powerful farmers, five perpetrators ‘escaped justice’through their personal and political power. In two cases they posthu-mously outlawed their victim. In one case the perpetrator mounted asuccessful legal defence. One instance was of morð (undisclosed killing).In the last case, the victims appear to have been too terrified to respond.113

Attention to the sequence of victims in these homicides is illuminat-ing, and argues against Miller’s view that in this period chieftains acted torepay insult and injury within a framework of reciprocity. Rather, theevidence is that, as Samson and Jón Viðar Sigurðsson have argued, theyacted proactively and coercively in subtle, sometimes brutal competitionwith their neighbours and their rivals.114 Goðorðsmenn were almost neverthe object of an initial killing in disputes in this sample. Of the fourinstances where this appears to be so, three are extremely brief referenceswhere we may suspect a history not related in these sources; in the fourth,a debt-defaulting hired man was the intended object of the lethal raid.115

Goðorðsmenn only became victims following vengeance committed bythemselves or their þingmenn. By contrast, goðorðsmenn themselves per-petrated around a quarter of initial killings. In these instances, they actedto secure their own personal interests, sometimes as part of a policy ofoutright intimidation. Thus Ásbjörn Hrafnkelsson, insulted by the tem-porary theft of his horses, visited the offending farmer, Ölviðr, to seekcompensation. When Ölviðr said ‘he was not aware that there wasanything to discuss’, Ásbjörn prosecuted Ölviðr, had him outlawed andkilled, saying ‘this was how he would teach his inferiors not to attackindependent farmers’.116 As part of a deliberate strategy of provocationand intimidation, Brodd-Helgi Þorgilsson attacked and killed several

112 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 153–75, 185; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp.364–73, 443.

113 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 30, 105, 152, 156, 217–18; Complete Sagas, ed.Hreinsson, IV, pp. 316, 363, 365, 381; V, p. 265. For the purpose of this example, I have presumedthe morð of Hrafn was instigated, although not committed, by either Brodd-Helgi or Geitir,both goðorðsmenn.

114 Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’; Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 151–85.115 The deaths of Halldórr and Arnórr Örnólfsson, Önundr töskubak and Þrúm-Ketill: Land-

námabók, ed. Benediktsson, ÍF 1, pp. 328, 333; Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 156,200; Book of Settlements, trans. Pálsson and Edwards, pp. 124–6; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson,IV, pp. 365, 436.

116 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 217–18; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, p. 381.



members of a party sent to summons him for killing neighbours’ cattleand cutting timber from a wood whose ownership was shared, but whichBrodd-Helgi coveted.117

The late twelfth century: rivalry, allegiance, and the changingpolitics of conflict

By the turn of the thirteenth century, social change in Icelandic society wasaccelerating.118 A comparison of homicide sequences from samtíðarsögurand íslendingasögur reveals continuities but also striking differences. If weput to one side for now the developing conflicts between the mostpowerful chieftains, we find in samtíðarsögur the continued occurrence ofhomicide committed by men of little means. Motives (see Table 3)reflected the frustrations of individual farmers, workmen and servants: alover killed the husband of his mistress; a dispute over a stolen inheritanceled to the death of a bodyguard; a servant killed a lodger who had madehim a laughing stock; a farmer was killed in an argument over a cow.119

Sexual rivalry, physical injury and ridicule remained a common motive forthese samtíðarsögur homicides. Five were conflicts over property. Twoappear to have been motivated partially or wholly by the conflictingallegiances of men to rival goðorðsmenn; no such situations are manifest iníslendingasögur.120 It is possible this is a consequence of the more fiction-alized content of the íslendingasögur; it more likely reflects the influence ofrivalry between the major chieftains on the allegiance and relationships ofordinary farmers in the late twelfth century.

The major difference between patterns of conflict in íslendingasögurand samtíðarsögur samples is that when farmers and others committedhomicide in the contemporary sagas, there was almost never a killing inretaliation. In íslendingasögur, chieftains were drawn into cycles of con-flict often lethal for themselves; in samtíðarsögur, such deaths were almostalways resolved by chieftains. This is consistent with Jón ViðarSigurðsson’s findings regarding both minor and major conflicts moregenerally within samtíðarsögur: that the majority were resolved throughmediation or arbitration, in the more significant cases by clergy orhöfðingjar.121 In íslendingasögur the rivalry between storbóndi HelgiDroplaugarson and goðorðsmaðr Helgi Ásbjarnarson led to a long and

117 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 38–41; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp.320–2.

118 Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 72–8; Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 58, 68–75.119 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 170, 194, 210–11; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 159,

186, 203–4.120 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 194, 203; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 186, 196.121 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 160–5. Note that Sigurðsson’s figures relate to conflicts of

all sorts, large and small, whereas the present data relate solely to homicide.

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bloody feud. The somewhat parallel rivalry later between Kálfr Gut-tormsson and Hallr Kleppjárnsson resulted in the death of the latter: butthis was resolved by a fine, Kálfr’s three-year exile to Norway and per-manent exile from the district.122 Homicidal vengeance, and particularlycycles of vengeance drawing in chieftains on both sides, was remarkablyless frequent in the late twelfth-century sample. The death of GuðmundrHallsson for trying to steal a horse might well have spiralled into a cycleof vengeance between goðorðsmenn had it occurred in íslendingasögur: inthe event it was resolved with a large fine and the perpetrators’ exile fromthe West fjords.123 Table 5 illustrates this: in íslendingasögur nearly two-thirds of all deaths were a result of vengeance attempts; in the latersample, barely more than one-third occurred as a result of vengeance.

An example mentioned earlier (Ingimundr, who killed his son-in-lawfor protecting Ingimundr’s partner, then was killed himself ) might super-ficially seem typical of patterns of vengeance in íslendingasögur.124 Yetamongst ten twelfth- to thirteenth-century homicides by men of ordinarymeans, it is the sole instance where a death was revenged by homicide. Asecond example reveals changing practice over time. In 1188, HrafnBrandsson, second husband of a well-off young woman with a history ofextra-marital liaisons, was killed by her new lover Hákon Þórðarson.Rather than become embroiled in vengeance, Hákon’s uncle Guðmundrdýri, mindful of his rivals, rapidly negotiated and paid fifteen hundredounces of silver and gave gifts to those brokering the deal, before othersmight initiate a prosecution.125 Table 4 shows this striking change inoutcomes of homicide by farmers: in íslendingasögur, half of all initialhomicides by farmers were followed by lethal vengeance, and only oneresolved by compensation alone; in the twelfth-century sample, only onesuch homicide resulted in a vengeance killing.126 This reluctance to uselethal vengeance may have been due to an increased awareness of its risk.More likely it reflected changes in social structure. Earlier, farmersresorted to vengeance because of the unreliability of other forms ofaccommodation in a society with poorly developed power and judicialstructures. By 1200, there was a clearer hierarchy of effective power;höfðingjar (chieftains) were expected to resolve disputes, especially those

122 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 142–80; Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, p. 258;Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV, pp. 355–80; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, p. 151.

123 Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, ed. Helgadóttir, p. 28; Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, p. 216;Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, p. 212.

124 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 172–3; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 161–2.125 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 168–70; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 157–60.126 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 145–6 and 247–8; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson,

IV, pp. 359–60 and 400; Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 172–3; Sturlunga saga, ed.McGrew, II, pp. 161–2.



within their own sphere of influence.127 Allegiance was increasingly some-thing exacted, rather than given. In this context, victims’ relatives wereunder greater pressure to avoid pursuing their own vengeance, whatevertheir inclinations. We see evidence of such resolution following seriousinjury as well as homicide.128

With the exception of those struggles in which the most powerfulchieftains threw their weight into confrontations with rivals, late twelfth-century goðorðsmenn were more reluctant to commit initial acts of homi-cide.129 This may in part have been because the stakes were higher, as thepatterns of power-holding amongst chieftains were shuffled.130 When JónKetilsson had Björn Gestsson killed for instigating a series of thefts, helost his goðorð to Guðmundr dýri in consequence; when KolbeinnTumason went to execute his rival Bishop Guðmundr’s followers, hehimself was killed in the melée.131

In íslendingasögur individual chieftains bullied individual farmers. Thetwelfth-to thirteenth-century höfðingjar used threats of force to intimi-date whole communities, extracting both money and followers.132 Chief-tains also deployed power in more subtle ways. Íslendinga saga relates aconflict between two rival goðorðsmenn. Sigurðr Ormsson seized propertyheld in trust by Sæmundr Jónsson’s father. After Sigurðr refused a settle-ment, Sæmundr had the unfortunate farmer on the land killed. This wasa conflict between chieftains with a lesser man as victim, leading not tofeud between the families, but to a threatened battle, resolved withoutbloodshed when Sigurðr’s backer, Kolbeinn Tumason, failed to supporthim.133 There is one similarity here with íslendingasögur: a powerful per-

127 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 32–5, 157, 194–9, 205–14.128 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 181–3; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 171–3.129 The killing of goðorðsmaðr Önundr Þorkelsson by Guðmundr dýri represents the culmination

of such rivalries; the killing of Björn Gestsson by Jón Ketilsson, ostensibly for theft, andÁmundi, þingmaðr of Hrafn, are the only other initial homicides committed by a goðorðsmaðrin this sample: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 167, 190, 221; Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnar-sonar, ed. Helgadóttir, p. 34; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 155, 181, 218. Often majorconfrontations were temporarily resolved without loss of life: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson,I, pp. 203–4, 261–2; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 153–4; II, pp. 196–7. The two decadesfrom 1204–24 showed the same infrequency in initial acts of homicide by goðorðsmenn.

130 The process of consolidation whereby goðorð were transferred and accumulated by a shrinkingnumber of powerful chieftains is particularly evident in Guðmundar saga dýra and Íslendingasaga. In 1184 there were five goðorð in the Eyjafjörð district, one probably shared; by 1202 therewere just three: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, p. 243; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, p. 133.See also Byock, Viking Age Iceland, pp. 341–3, 348–9; Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 72–82;Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power, pp. 66–8; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 1–16,155–78, 238–46.

131 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 167, 248–53; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 139–44;II, pp. 155–6; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, p. 164.

132 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 389, 416; II, pp. 48–50, 65–7; Sturlunga saga, ed.McGrew, I, pp. 293, 321; II, pp. 281–3, 301.

133 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 237–9; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 126–8.

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petrator (Sæmundr) escaped justice by prosecuting and successfully out-lawing the ‘victim’ (in this case Sigurðr himself ).

The outcome of such disputes, even for powerful chieftains, wastherefore typically a consequence of the political backing (or lack of it)which they were able to develop. Vice versa, pursuing and mobilizingvengeance was also one source of political capital, particularly for youngermen like Þorgrímr alikarl building their influence as chieftains. Indeed,all of those (few) initial killings perpetrated by goðorðsmenn led to ven-geance or a cycle of vengeance in the samtíðarsögur sample, suggestingthat such lethal events were a clear and explicit component within thesechieftains’ political strategies (Tables 4 and 5).134 In the disputes betweenthe most powerful of these chieftains, despite the accounts insamtíðarsögur of large confrontations, in most instances fighting wasavoided. Yet we should not in any way underestimate the lethal conse-quences of these major confrontations. When the rivalry built over fiveyears between Guðmundr dýri and Önundr Þorkelsson did finally eruptin 1197, six men died in the burning of Önundr’s homestead, and sevenmore in the subsequent vengeance.135 When Kolbeinn Tumasonattempted in 1208 to enforce control over the clergy in the north, twelvemen died; nineteen more in subsequent attempts at vengeance.136 Becausemore died in such confrontations than in encounters between individualfarmers, craftsmen or servants, goðorðsmenn were responsible for propor-tionately as many deaths in the samtíðarsögur samples as in íslendingasögur(Tables 3–5). And each of these individual killings, battles and burningsof the thirteenth century can be seen as the direct outcome of politicalcompetition for superiority between rival höfðingjar.

Implications: retribution, accommodation and the realitiesof power

Medieval Iceland was a society undergoing sustained and radical changebetween the tenth and thirteenth centuries. Rapid deforestation as aconsequence of settlement and the resultant erosion doubtless accentu-ated competition for grazing, fuel and building materials.137 Insecurityover households’ viability can only have heightened tensions betweenneighbours. Yet the homicides in each of these very different samples weretied in to a process of social change rather than the result of immediateenvironmental pressures. Motivations for initial homicides in both

134 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 194–209; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 186–203.135 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 175–207; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 165–200.136 These latter deaths lie outside the 1184–1204 sample: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp.

238–53; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 127–44.137 However see Karlsson’s discussion, Iceland’s 1100 Years, pp. 44–51.



íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur were concerned at least as often withsexual behaviour, insults and threats to ‘face’ as with resources and prop-erty. It is the processes of vengeance revealed in the sequelae of homicidewhich throw light on the drivers of social change leading up to thethirteenth century. Seen through the lenses of their thirteenth-centuryauthors, íslendingasögur portrays a society where the resolution followinghomicide depended essentially on the perpetrator’s power base: bóndi,storbóndi or goðorðsmaðr were each able to take proactive steps, preparefor defence or take flight, dependent on their individual ability to mustersocial as much as material support. William Miller and Theodore Ander-sson correctly deduced from Heusler’s analysis that the íslendingasögur‘suggest the dispute-processing mode of first choice was violent self-help’.Andreas Heusler’s findings, although analysed differently, parallel thoseof the present study: in íslendingasögur just under 60% of disputes cul-minated in an act of revenge.138 This absence of violent retribution tonearly half all the íslendingasögur homicides requires careful interpreta-tion however. Miller’s analysis emphasizes retribution, within his modelof reciprocity, as the driver for social interaction in medieval Icelandicsociety.139 The finding that no lethal vengeance followed half the initialhomicides might be seen to support Wallace-Hadrill’s argument that inearly medieval societies accommodation was the common alternative tovengeance because of the riskiness of the latter.140 But the lack of ven-geance evident in íslendingasögur was not generally because some settle-ment was reached: only one initial homicide was resolved by successfulprosecution, and in only one instance did compensation alone achieve asettlement. In most cases without vengeance, there was no ‘accommoda-tion’ or ‘resolution’: either a powerless perpetrator fled, or the killerescaped justice in one way or another.141

The outcome of conflicts in samtíðarsögur presents a rather differentpicture. Homicides in samtíðarsögur were far less likely to lead to furtherdeath. The growing role and dominance of chieftains meant that even inthe districts sampled in this study (where ríki had not yet been success-fully established), feuds between farmers were virtually unknown.142 Yet

138 Heusler, Das Strafrecht der Isländersagas, pp. 38–41; Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature inMedieval Iceland, pp. 22–6. Heusler also commented on the consistent differences betweeníslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur, including the greater frequency of mediation and arbitrationby an influential goðorðsmaðr: Heusler, Zum isländischen Fehdewesen in der Sturlungzeit.

139 Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 182; see also Miller, ‘Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid’, pp. 18–50.140 Wallace-Hadrill, ‘The Bloodfeud of the Franks’, at p. 147.141 Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 69–73, 105, 185, 217–18, 247–8; Brennu-Njáls saga,

ed. Sveinsson, ÍF 12, p. 209; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, p. 99; IV, pp. 336–7, 381, 400,443; V, p. 265.

142 This point is made by Sigurðsson, but in relation to those districts where ríki had already beenestablished: Chieftains and Power, p. 33.

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although samtíðarsögur did exhibit more accommodation in the form ofcompensation, it was accommodation on the terms of the powerful. Itwas the höfðingjar (and at their request, sometimes the clergy) whonegotiated and awarded compensation. In the late twelfth century-sample the families of ordinary men settled their own scores rarely. Thisreflects profound social change between the periods described, even inthose areas where ríki had not yet been forged.

Retribution, parity and accommodation all imply relative equalitybetween parties. But as Ross Samson and Orri Vésteinsson have shown,the relationships between the various höfðingjar, householders, and theirkin, tenants, hired labourers and thralls were not at all equal, butdepended on their respective ability to call on the support or allegiance ofothers. No two individuals were equal in this respect. The power of eithergoðorðsmaðr or householder did not come from their legal status butthrough the extent of their wealth and reputation, and latterly theircontrol of ministries, which enabled them to call in obligations andfavours, to bargain, to bribe, and to deliver carefully titrated threats andcoercion.143 Thus in the early eleventh century when Flosi defendedhimself against prosecution for the burning of Njáll, he relied on gifts tobuy the support of at least three, possibly seven, of the eight chieftains hevisited. When Þórðr asked for his goðorðsmaðr Brodd-Helgi’s help in adisagreement about grazing rights, Helgi demanded all Þórðr’s posses-sions and his labour for life in exchange for any help.144 This exampleillustrates Samson’s perception that ‘violence (and) coercion is foundeverywhere’ (a perception which has much in common with StephenWhite’s subtle analyses of the operation of Merovingian vengeance). Yetthis example of Helgi and Þórðr also illustrates how incidents of homi-cide themselves contributed to the progressive differentiation of wealthand power in the society.145

In both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur lethal vengeance was avoidednot, as Miller argued, because feud only took place between equals, butbecause of the imbalance of power, which Miller himself recognizedwhen farmers had to ‘lump it’ in dealings with powerful farmers andgoðorðsmenn.146 In the majority of instances in this study it was a balanceof personal, legal or political power in favour of goðorðsmenn against other

143 Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland, pp. 1–16,87–92, 238–46.

144 Brennu-Njáls saga, ed. Sveinsson, ÍF 12, pp. 349–53; Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11,p. 38; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, III, pp. 165–8; IV, p. 320.

145 Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’, at p. 187; S.D. White, ‘Clothild’s Revenge: Politics,Kinship, and Ideology in the Merovingian Blood Feud’, in White, Re-Thinking Kinship andFeudalism in Early Medieval Europe, article III, pp. 107–30.

146 Andersson and Miller, Law and Literature in Medieval Iceland, pp. 23–6; Miller, Bloodtaking,p. 185.



farmers which prevented vengeance: the examples of homicide in bothíslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur throw light on goðorðsmenn who were apotential aristocracy in the making. Thus to say that ‘feud was thebedrock of Icelandic medieval culture’ is profoundly misleading.147 Ven-geance might function to redress wrongs, but it might equally function toimpose authority. Retribution, accommodation, or ‘lumping it’ were lessabout parity than about the realities of political power and the possibilityfor pragmatic deals for preserving honour. As Miller himself brieflyacknowledged, retribution was only sometimes driven by the demands ofhonour. In both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur, aggressive and com-petitive actions were rather legitimated through the language of offenceand repayment.148

Icelandic farmers in íslendingasögur who saw themselves as victims indisputes often chose to turn to goðorðsmenn for assistance. In thesamtíðarsögur examples, we have a sense that they less often had a choice:they were obliged to do so.149 As Stephen White has argued in relation toMerovingian practice, retributive action was more than an exchangebetween two independent parties: it was a move in several ‘games’ withmultiple simultaneous players; at times punishment, deterrent, coercionor aggrandisement; part of a process of competitive behaviour in severalmodalities (honour, valour, wealth, women, followers).150 In late twelfth-century Iceland, from the evidence in these examples, it was a gameplayed increasingly only by höfðingjar, rather than by the families of thevictims themselves.

Conclusions

This study has employed a quantitative approach to develop an exami-nation of homicide as described in medieval Icelandic sources. The resultsof this exercise suggest important conclusions in three areas. The first ofthese, although clearly dependent on potentially controversial assump-tions, is the possibility that the incidence of homicide in late twelfth-century Iceland may have been not dissimilar to rates prevalent innear-contemporaneous rural European medieval communities. Indeedthese homicide rates may even have been somewhat lower than in many

147 J.L. Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga (Berkeley, 1982), p. 36 (my emphasis).148 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 257–8; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, pp. 149–51;

Austfirðinga sögur, ed. Jóhannesson, ÍF 11, pp. 105, 217–18; Complete Sagas, ed. Hreinsson, IV,p. 381; V, pp. 265. Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 205. Compare Hyams, Rancor and Reconciliation,pp. 3–11.

149 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 210, 216, 218; Hrafns saga Sveinbjarnarsonar, ed.Helgadóttir, pp. 28, 30–1; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 203–4, 212, 214.

150 White, ‘Clothild’s Revenge’, at p. 130. Miller acknowledged the unfolding of simultaneous‘games’: Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 374.

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medieval European cities. Even allowing for the extreme difficulty inattempting estimates such as these, and the possibility of underestima-tion, it appears that medieval Iceland was perhaps not as violent a societyas a qualitative reading of the sagas might imply.

Secondly, there are clear differences in the patterns of homicide andvengeance between the two sets of sources, which are at least consistentwith the kinds of changes in the social structure of Icelandic societyduring the early medieval period (in particular the growing power offewer chieftains, and their political alliances) explored by recent scholarssuch as Jón Viðar Sigurðsson and Orri Vésteinsson.151

Thirdly, the present analysis also lends support to more recent inter-pretations of medieval Iceland as a highly divided, ‘unequal society witha large class of . . . politically powerless householders forming the base ofeach chieftain’s power’.152 Although the legitimating models of exchangemay have been notions of honour and reciprocity, this analysis has shownthat in these lethal exchanges, balance and reciprocity were rarelyachieved, even temporarily. In both íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur,wealth and influence were frequently sought through aggressive andcompetitive action as well as through the honour and payments derivingfrom the resolution of others’ disputes. No wonder then, since these sagasare above all accounts of powerful families’ lives, íslendingasögur were‘acutely concerned . . . with the way in which law and order was main-tained’, with dispute, with lethal conflicts. No wonder also that they glossover the periods when ‘for a long time nothing happened’ to disturb theday-to-day lives of powerful individuals.153

Evolutionary game theorists have shown that retaliation in kind is themost reliable strategy in competition with rivals.154 This is consonant withthe importance attached by Miller to a medieval Icelandic ‘model’ of‘balance’ and ‘reciprocity’, but it is insufficient in explaining either thevariety of individual behaviour, or changing patterns of dispute andviolence.155 The lower frequency of reciprocal vengeance in the latetwelfth-century sample, if not an artefact of sampling error, or the dis-tortions of thirteenth-century authors, is not explicable by a model ofreciprocity alone: it is only explicable when other dimensions of power,choice and survival are taken into account. Independent vengeance byfarmers was reduced by the necessities of allegiance; independent ven-

151 Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power; Vésteinsson, Christianization of Iceland.152 Vésteinsson, ‘A Divided Society’, at p. 137.153 Samson, ‘Goðar: Democrats or Despots?’, pp. 167, 171. See also Miller, Bloodtaking, pp. 303–4.154 Game theory experiments demonstrate that ‘tit for tat’ (cooperate first time, then match

opponents’ last move) strategies are stable within a group: Daly and Wilson, Homicide, p. 235;R. Axelrod and W.D. Hamilton, ‘The Evolution of Cooperation’, Science 211 (1981), pp. 1390–6.

155 See Boehm, Blood Revenge, pp. 143–54, 229–46; Boehm, ‘Ambivalence and Compromise’,pp. 921–39.



geance by goðorðsmenn was reduced by the necessities of survival. Bothwere conscious decisions made by individuals weighing their options inthe light of unknown risks.156 Miller emphasized how honour could beacquired as much by forbearance and magnanimity as by retribution. Theinfluence of the church became palpable during the twelfth century inthis respect.157 Yet both hostile and magnanimous exchanges may be bestunderstood not as attempts to achieve balance and reciprocity, but ascompetitive exchanges, whose ‘object . . . was to undo the basis for equal-ity’ and reassert ‘superiority relative to the other’. These were Miller’s ownwords in the course of his discussion of parity in exchange.158 Yet he didnot draw the appropriate conclusion: that all of these acts, whether gift,sale, payment, raid, or coercion, settlement, vengeance or accommoda-tion, were individual choices in a competitive process whose objective wasenhanced status, power and resources relative to possible rivals.159

University of Newcastle

156 Compare the decisions made by Önundr Þorkelsson and Guðmundr dýri with those describedby Boehm, Blood Revenge, pp. 92–103, 143–56: Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 175–89;Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, II, pp. 165–80.

157 Sturlunga saga, ed. Jóhannesson, I, pp. 238; Sturlunga saga, ed. McGrew, I, p. 127; Vésteinsson,Christianization of Iceland, pp. 144–66.

158 Miller, Bloodtaking, p. 302, my emphasis.159 Nineteenth-century Maori society provides a striking similarity, with honour (mana) gained

equally by gift-giving, or theft through raiding and war: J. Belich, Making Peoples (Auckland,1996), pp. 81–9, 158–61.

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Appendix

Table 1 Comparative homicide rates, per annum per 100 000 total population

Population Date Homicide Rates Source

Iceland 1940–79 0.72 Gudjonsson & Petursson1

Canada 1974–83 2.7 Daly & Wilson2

Busoga (Uganda) 1952–54 4.0 Fallers & Fallers3

Samoa 1977 9.9 Freeman4

United States 1980 10.7 Daly & Wilson

England (rural) 1200–76 9–23 Given5

Norwich 1200–76 16 GivenBedfordshire (rural) 1200–76 10–40 Hair6

Iceland (Eyjafjörður) 1184–1204 24–62 Present study

Oxford borough 1241–61 35 GivenLondon 1300–48 36–52 Hanawalt7

Oxford borough 1342–48 60–120 Hammer8

Florence 1352–85 68–152 Becker9

Corsica 1800s 17–80 Gould10

!Kung (Kalahari) 1920–55 41.9 Lee11

Miami 1980 35.3 Daly & WilsonPhiladelphia Black males 1948–52 36.9 Wolfgang12

Detroit 1972 45.6 Daly & WilsonColombia c.1990 89.5 Pereira & Davis13

Cleveland Black males 1969–74 142.1 Rose14

Yanomamo 1970–74 165.9 Melancon15

Mexican mestizo village 1961–65 251.2 Nash16

Murngin (Australia) 1906–26 330.0 Warner17

Tauade (New Guinea) 1896–1946 533.0 Hallpike18

Gebusi (New Guinea) 1963–82 419.0 Knauft19

Gebusi (New Guinea) 1940–63 683.0 Knauft

1 Gudjonsson and Petursson, ‘Some Aspects of Homicide in Iceland’, at p. 91.2 Daly and Wilson, Homicide, pp. 125, 282–5.3 L.A. Fallers and M.C. Fallers, ‘Homicide and Suicide in Busoga’, in P. Bohanan (ed.), African Homicide and Suicide (NewJersey, 1960), pp. 65–93, at p. 71.4 From the figures given by D. Freeman, Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth(Cambridge, MA, 1983), p. 163.5 Given, Society and Homicide, pp. 36, 84–5, 175. The ranges here are based on Given’s own population estimates.6 Hair, ‘Deaths from Violence’, p. 18.7 Hanawalt, ‘Violent Death’, pp. 301–2.8 Hammer, ‘Patterns of Homicide’, pp. 11–13.9 Becker, ‘Changing Patterns of Violence’, p. 287.10 R. Gould, ‘Collective Violence and Group Solidarity: Evidence from a Feuding Society’, American Sociological Review 64

(1999), pp. 356–80.11 Lee, The !Kung San, pp. 397–400.12 Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide, p. 66.13 A. Pereira and D. Davis, ‘New Patterns of Violence and Coercion in the Latin Americas’, Latin American Perspectives 27(2000), pp. 3–17.14 Rose, Lethal Aspects of Urban Violence, pp. 8, 14.15 Quoted by Knauft, ‘Reconsidering Violence’, p. 464.16 Nash, ‘Death as a Way of Life’.17 W.L. Warner, A Black Civilisation: A Social Study of an Australian Tribe (New York, 1937), at pp. 146–7.18 Hallpike, Bloodshed and Vengeance, p. 120.19 Knauft, ‘Reconsidering Violence’, pp. 462–4. Before European influence (1940–63) the rate was 683; from 1963–82 therate was 419.



Table 2 Estimation of homicide rates, Eyjafjörður–Reykjadalur, 1184–1204

Homicides initiated by goðorðsmenn 7

Deaths consequential on these homicides 8

Estimate of homicides committed by goðorðsmenn not related in the sources 4

Estimate of total homicides by goðorðsmenn with consequential deaths 19

Homicides initiated by farmers, farmhands, servants, others, in sources 8

Deaths consequential on these homicides 1

Total homicides by farmers & others, & consequential deaths, in sources 9

Estimate of total homicides by farmers & others, & consequential deaths, forpopulation of Eyjafjörður (see text and note 71 above)

36

Total homicide estimate for Eyjafjörður 1184–1204 55

Total homicide estimate for Iceland per annum (see note 58)a) Assuming Eyjafjörður to have had 16% of Icelandic population 17.2b) Assuming Eyjafjörður to have had 11% of Icelandic population 25.0

Estimated homicide rates per 100 000 population per annum

using estimates a) and b) above1) Assuming population of Iceland 70 000 a) 24.6

b) 35.72) Assuming population of Iceland 50 000 a) 34.4

b) 50.03) Assuming population of Iceland 40 000 a) 43.0

b) 62.5

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Table 3 Perpetrators possible motives for initial homicide1

Initial homicides: Íslendingasögur sample:

Homicide

for

Outright

Theft

Dispute

over

Land,Animals,Propertyor Debt

Argument or

Retributionover Non-SexualInsult or

Injury

SexualJealousy,Retributionfor Seductionor SexualInsult

ProactiveActionAgainstRival,Enemyor Outlaw

Self-Defence

Uncertain

Motive Total

Homicides ledor committedby goðorðsmennor immediatekin2

– 2 3 – 1 1 2 9

Homicides ledand committedby others

– 1 2 4 – – 6 13

Uncertainperpetrator

13 – – – – – 2 3

All initialhomicides

1 3 5 4 1 1 10 25

Initial homicides: Samtíðarsögur sample: Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur 1184–1204 (10 initial deaths), and Arnarfjörðand Dýrafjörð 1204–1214 (3 initial deaths)

Homicide

for Outright

Theft

Dispute over

Land, Animals,Property or

Debt

Argument or

Retributionover Non-SexualInsult or

Injury

SexualJealousy,Retributionfor Seductionor SexualInsult

ProactiveActionAgainstRival,Enemy or

Outlaw Total

Homicides committedby goðorðsmenn4

– 1 – – 2 3

Homicides committedby others

– 4 3 3 – 10

All initial homicides – 5 3 3 2 13

1 Initial homicides are analysed for the 25 separate sequences in the íslendingasögur sample; 13 sequences in the samtíðarsögursample. Where multiple motives were evident, homicides are tabulated under the motive which apparently triggered thehomicide.2 Goðorðsmenn, or their first-degree relatives by blood (father, son or brother).3 The morð of Hrafn in Vápnfirðinga saga was probably instigated by a goðorðsmaðr but has been included here.4 These include instances when a goðorðsmaðr told a follower to carry out a killing under the direct instruction of thegoðorðsmaðr.



Table 4 Sequences of homicide and vengeance: the consequences of initialhomicides1

Sequences of homicide: Íslendingasögur sample:

Initial Homicide in SequenceCommitted or Led by: GO–DOR–DSMENN

2

Farmersand Others

MOR–D:ConcealedPerpetrator Total

Consequences:No further deaths: 8

Escaped justice (failed prosecution,victim outlawed, or no consequence)

3 1 13

Perpetrator fled/outlawed(with/without compensation also)

– 2 –

Compensation only – 1 –Further deaths: 11

Single vengeance attack or attempt 1 3

Cycle of vengeance (‘feud’) 5 2

Consequence not ascertainable – 4 2 6

Total number of homicide sequences 9 13 3 25

Sequences of homicide: Samtíðarsögur sample: Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur 1184–1204, andArnarfjörður and Dýrafjörður 1204–1214

Initial Homicide Committed

or Led by: GO–DOR–DSMENN4

Farmersand Others

MOR–D:ConcealedPerpetrator Total

Consequences:No further deaths: 9

Escaped justice (failed prosecution,victim outlawed, or no consequence)

– 1 –

Perpetrator fled/outlawed(with/without compensation also)

– 5 –

Compensation only – 3 –Further deaths: 4

Single vengeance attack or attempt 1 1 –Cycle of vengeance (‘feud’) 2 – –

Total number of homicide sequences 3 10 – 13

1 These deaths comprise 25 separate sequences (105 deaths) in the íslendingasögur sample; 13 sequences(30 deaths) in the samtíðarsögur sample. Some homicide sequences commence with multiple initialdeaths.2 References to goðorðsmenn include homicides by their first-degree blood relatives. Publiclyacknowledged homicides (víg) where the perpetrator could not be identified from the sources are includedamongst those committed by others. Morð refers to concealed or unacknowledged homicide.3 The morð of Hrafn in Vápnfirðinga saga was probably instigated by a goðorðsmaðr but has beenincluded here.4 These include instances when a goðorðsmaðr told a follower to carry out a killing under the directinstruction of the goðorðsmaðr.

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Table 5 Initial and consequential deaths: total number of deaths in each categoryin the sample1

Numbers of deaths: Íslendingasögur sample:

Initial Homicide

Committed by: GO–DOR–DSMENN2

Farmers,Servants& Others

TotalDeaths

Initial deaths 42

Initial deaths with nodeaths in consequence(or not ascertainable)

5 16

Initial deaths followedby other deaths

16 5

Consequential deathsCommitted or led by: Goðorðsmenn Farmers,

servants& others

Goðorðsmenn Farmers,servants& others

Consequential deaths 30 8 8 17 63

Total initial &consequential homicides

59 46

Total of all homicides 105

Numbers of deaths: Samtíðarsögur sample: Eyjafjörður and Reykjadalur 1184–1204 (24 deaths), andArnarfjörður and Dýrafjörður 1204–1214 (6 deaths)

Initial Homicide

Committed by: GO–DOR–DSMENN3

Farmers,Servants& Others

TotalDeaths

Initial deaths 18

Initial deaths with nodeaths in consequence

0 9

Initial deaths followedby other deaths

8 1

Consequential deathsCommitted or led by: Goðorðsmenn Farmers,

servants& others

Goðorðsmenn Farmers,servants& others

Consequential deaths 8 3 0 1 12

Total initial &consequential homicides

19 11

Total of all homicides 30

1 These deaths comprise 25 separate sequences (105 deaths) in the íslendingasögur sample; 13 sequences (30deaths) in the samtíðarsögur sample. Some homicide sequences commence with multiple initial deaths.2 References to goðorðsmenn include homicides by their first-degree blood relatives, typically brothers or sons.Homicides where the perpetrator could not be identified are included amongst those committed by others.3 These include instances when a goðorðsmaðr told a follower to carry out a killing under the direct instructionof the goðorðsmaðr.



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