Icelanders and the Kings of Norway
ISBN: 9789047408017
Platform/Publisher: BRILL / BRILL
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Unlimited; Download: Unlimited
Subjects: Consequentialism (Ethics); Paternalism;

The book uses sagas and legal texts to re-examine the relations between mediaeval Icelanders and the Norwegian kings. It demonstrates that the Icelanders - partly subjects of the king, and partly beyond his power - were ready to negotiate with him for their own benefit, and presents a methodological re-evaluation of authorial attributions of the sagas and their use as historical sources. Key to the book is a revisionary analysis of two laws made between the Icelanders and the kings of Norway: a law probably issued by King Óláfr inn helgi of Norway (1015-1028), and the purported submission agreements with King Hákon Hákonarson (1217-1263), known as Gizurarsáttmáli or Gamli sáttmáli . It also analyses the sagas of the fourteenth-century manuscript Möðruvallabók against the historical context extracted from this legal re-evaluation.


hidden image for function call