This is 84 of our ongoing series about Viking Age Iceland. For centuries, this island country, unique in Medieval Europe, operated with no king, no great lords, no foreign policy, and no defense forces but which developed legal and judicial systems to limit the violence of bloodfeud and protect the rights of freemen. Far out in the North Atlantic, Iceland was where the famous sagas developed. To explore Iceland’s place in the medieval world, we present selections from Jesse Byock’s Viking Age Iceland that investigate the history, archaeology, culture, systems of feud, and sagas of this magical place.
Advocacy arrangements existed alongside, and sometimes in place of, goði-thingman and kinship ties. These agreements established between any two individuals a set of third-party contractual obligations, which could be freely entered into by advocates and clients living in any part of the quarter or, for that matter, in any part of the country. Unlike the goði-thingman bond which was defined in the laws, advocacy was an informal, extralegal association that came into being in response to specific needs. Functioning as a form of third-party intervention, it assumed unusual prominence in early Iceland because both farmers and chieftains frequently required more assistance than public institutions offered.
The fact that government was often permitted to operate by means of private intervention, particularly at the assemblies, provided many opportunities for advocates. Some of these, especially chieftains, increased their influence to the point where they became power-brokers. Such individuals, who were often also called on to act as arbitrators, did not constitute a separate class or a semi-official body, for theirs was a temporary role. They were farmers and chieftains who enjoyed credibility and inspired the trust of others. Examples mentioned in the sagas of especially powerful advocates who frequently acted as power-brokers are Snorri goði, Jon Loftsson, Gudmund the Worthy, Gudmund the Powerful, and the prominent farmer Njal Thorgeirsson.
Sometimes advocates, even as brokers, acted out of high-mindedness (drengskapr), charging no fee for their efforts to solve the problems of others. The motivation for such acts of goodwill might be the desire to enhance one’s prestige or to reaffirm kinship, political alliances or goði-thingman ties. But at other times an advocate might set a fee which was often substantial, perhaps even requiring the transfer of property or inheritance rights in return for his services. The fee, which made it worth the while of a third party to intervene in the affairs of others, is frequently referred to in the sagas by the term sœmð, meaning honourable recompense. Hallfred’s Saga (Hallfreðar saga) offers an example of how an advocate, in this instance a kinsman and a goði, was engaged. Hallfred, a cantankerous poet, has slept with another man’s wife. In a confrontation the next day he kills one of the husband’s kinsmen, named Einar. The husband initiates a lawsuit against Hallfred; when Hallfred is summoned to the local Húnavatns Thing (Chapter 10[IS1] ), his brother Galti asks him:
‘What do you intend to do about this case?’
Hallfred replied, ‘I intend to seek the aid of my kinsman Thorkel [Thorgrimsson, a goði].’
In the spring thirty of them rode north to Hof [Thorkel’s farm in Vatnsdalr] and spent the night. Hallfred asked Thorkel what support he could expect from him. Thorkel responded that he would take on the case if he were offered some honourable compensation (sœmð). [The kind of payment is not disclosed.]
— Jesse Byock, Viking Age Iceland
