This is 88 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.
The absence of pitched battles does not mean that the island inhabitants eschewed all forms of militant show, only that they ritualized the actual use of force. Parties to a dispute that was moving toward resolution frequently assembled large numbers of armed bœndr. Sometimes these groups confronted each other for days at assemblies and at other gatherings, such as when a successful party was trying to enforce a judgement at the home of the defendant (féránsdómr). Although opposing sides often clashed briefly, and a few men might be killed, protracted battles were consistently avoided. It was not by chance that the parties showed restraint. Leaders really had few options if they hoped to retain the allegiance of a large following, since the bœndr were not dependable supporters in a long or perilous confrontation. They had no tradition of obeying orders, maintaining discipline, or being absent from their farms for extended periods. The goðar, for their part, were seldom able to bear the burdens of campaigning. They lacked the resources necessary to feed, house, equip and pay followers for more than a brief period.
Rather than signalling the outbreak of warfare, a public display of armed support revealed that significant numbers of men had chosen sides and were prepared to participate in working toward an honourable resolution. With chieftains and farmers publicly committed, a compromise resting on a collective agreement could be reached. Conforming to the expected practice, third parties, termed men of goodwill (góðviljamenn) or well-wishing men (góðgjarnir menn), intervened between the armed groups, publicly displaying góðgirnð or góðgirni (the words normally mean goodness, kindness, or benevolence). Consider the description from Chapter 20 of The Saga of Thorgils and Haflidi (Thorgils saga ok Hafliða) of the gathering of men for a court of confiscation after Haflidi Masson succeeded in obtaining a judgement of outlawry against Thorgils Oddason in the year 1120:
And as the time approached for holding the féránsdómr [the court of confiscation, i.e. carrying out the sentence at Thorgils’ home], Thorgils gathered men around him, assembling almost 400 in all. Haflidi had from the north a picked band of 100 men, each chosen for his manliness and equipment. And in a third place the men of the district gathered together for the purpose of intervening with góðgirnð [benevolence]. The leaders of this group were Thord Gilsson and Hunbogi Thorgilsson from Skarð. With them were also other góðgjarnir menn [men of good wishes] – Gudmund Brandsson and Ornolf Thorgilsson from Kvennabrekka, with 200 men for the peacemaking.
Góðgjarnir menn might simply be concerned neighbours. Frequently, as in the above example, they were chieftains and ambitious bœndr who by stopping a violent clash often enhanced their own reputations. One of the góðgjarnir menn in the above example, Thord Gilsson, was a bóndi who became a chieftain. His son was the famous chieftain Hvamm-Sturla. In some instances, after separating the opposing sides, góðgjarnir menn served as arbitrators, thus improving their own status by arranging suitable resolutions. For approximately three centuries, or until the last decades of the Free State, there were in Iceland no pitched battles with casualties comparable to those that routinely took place elsewhere in medieval Europe. Avoiding warfare, the Icelanders esteemed political flexibility and legal acumen, a cultural focus that is seen in their literature.
— Jesse Byock, Viking Age Iceland
