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Viking Age Iceland (Penguin History) [Paperback]

Jesse L. Byock
4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Book Description

September 1, 2001 Penguin History
The popular image of the Viking Age is of warlords and marauding bands pillaging their way along the shores of Northern Europe. In this fascinating history, Jesse Byock shows that Norse society in Iceland was actually an independent one-almost a republican Free State, without warlords or kings. Combining history with anthropology and archaeology, this remarkable study serves as a valuable companion to the Icelandic sagas, exploring all aspects of Viking Age life: feasting, farming, the power of chieftains and the church, marriage, and the role of women. With masterful interpretations of the blood feuds and the sagas, Byock reveals how the law courts favored compromise over violence, and how the society grappled with proto-democratic tendencies. A work with broad social and historical implications for our modern institutions, Byock's history will alter long-held perceptions of the Viking Age.

Frequently Bought Together

Viking Age Iceland (Penguin History) + The Sagas of Icelanders: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) + Njal's Saga (Penguin Classics)
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books (September 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140291156
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140291155
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Icelandic Vikings, according to Byock, professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian at UCLA, were far more than fur-clad, flea-bitten, mead-swilling raiders, as legend would have them. In this survey of their surprisingly complex society, spanning the three centuries from the island's settlement to 1260 when the king of Norway took control of it, Byock shows the Icelanders as a strong-willed and legally minded people who managed to carve a living as farmers out of an inhospitable environment while creating a remarkably modern free state governed by powerful laws and notions of honor instead of warlords and kings. He introduces readers to the Icelandic economy, social life (especially blood feuds) and home and family life, including a wonderful illustrated appendix on construction using turf. While this book will appeal to some readers of popular social surveys, in particular The Last Apocalypse: Europe at the Year 1000 A.D, by James Reston Jr., Byock's tone is generally academic and so more similar to that of, say, Courtesans and Fishcakes: The Consuming Passions of Classical Athens, by James Davidson. Byock's approach to his material also threatens an academic dust-up. He defies historiographical convention, but not without good and well-stated reason, by mining the Icelandic sagas for historical truths. Some may consider this approach akin to mining Cheever for truths about the lives of 20th-century suburbanites, but he certainly puts those facts he finds to cogent use. Illus.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Byock (old Norse and medieval Scandinavian, UCLA; Medieval Iceland) here attempts to dispel some popular Viking stereotypes. The image of the Viking as a pitiless destroyer of monasteries and a pillager of towns must be amended, he argues, to include the creation of great literature, a republican form of government, and the mechanisms for conflict resolution. Byock presents the evolution of Viking Iceland from its settlement beginnings, to its flowering as a highly developed legislative body, to its dissolution at the hands of the conquering Norwegians, who imposed a monarchical government in the 1260s. Byock uses Icelandic sagas to illustrate Viking efforts toward a type of conflict resolution that would be least injurious to society as a whole. He also points out the roles that women and Christianity played in the evolution of what was, for a time, a progressive society. This work should appeal to both students and general readers with an interest in Viking-age Europe. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. Robert James Andrews, Duluth P.L., MN

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books (September 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140291156
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140291155
  • Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.8 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #337,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jesse Byock is a Professor of Old Norse and Medieval Scandinavian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and professor at UCLA's Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. He directs the Mosfell Archaeological Project in Iceland and teaches Old Norse - Icelandic.

He is the author of Viking Age Iceland, Medieval Iceland, and Feud in the Icelandic Saga. His translations from Old Norse include The Prose Edda, The Saga of the Volsungs, The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki, Sagas and Myths of the Northmen, and Grettir´s Saga.

Customer Reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
(17)
4.6 out of 5 stars
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I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in reading about the vikings and the viking age! pace Group 11  |  5 reviewers made a similar statement
This was a great book that I've read and re-read portions of. Cannonrep87  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
41 of 41 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Uniqueness of Early Icelandic Society February 10, 2002
Format:Paperback
At a recent academic symposium about Viking culture, one member of the audience asked, "Why didn't the Icelanders protect their settlements in Greenland with police or the military?" From his point of view, it was a reasonable question -- except that he had missed the point completely about why Iceland, especially during its golden age from AD 870 through 1260, was a truly unique society.

Professor Byock in his excellent VIKING AGE ICELAND zeroes in on this period and answers the question why this society was like no other. Where mainland European societies were all ruled either by large or petty despots or by the Church, Iceland was governed more or less by the consent of the governed. There was some slavery, and people on the edges of society fared no better (or worse) than anywhere else -- but your average Icelandic freeman and even women had some protection from the rich and powerful.

Until its submission to Norway in 1260, Iceland was a country without an executive, without an army, without a navy. Instead, grievances were addressed by seeking powerful allies whose self-interest in the issue could result in some gain for them. If a neighbor or even a chieftain encroached on your property, you could bribe another chieftain to become involved on your side. You may lose some property, but keep the most part intact for your heirs. (On the continent, your life AND property would both be forfeit.) Chieftains had no clearly defined territory, but only adherents -- and adherents could at any time align with competing chieftains at any time. Any disputes that showed signs of getting out of hand were ultimately resolved at the althing, an annual meeting of the chieftains and their adherents at Thingvellir in the southwest of Iceland....

Byock takes the sagas as his principal source and carefully shows how conflicts were resolved in such a way that life and property were protected. That is not to say that bloody, long-lasting feuds did not erupt -- but the damage was limited by the intercession of chieftains so that the feud would not divide society at large. As Njal Thorgeirsson says in NJALS SAGA: "With laws must our land be built, or with lawlessness laid waste."

Some of the features of Icelandic society are difficult for us hieratic Europeans and Americans to comprehend. Byock provides detailed and lavishly illustrated examples to make his points clearly and convincingly. Indeed, in few historical works that I have ever seen has there been such superb illustrative maps and charts. Additional support is provided by comprehensive notes, bibliography, appendices, and index. This is at the same time a scholarly and an eminently readable work -- and by far the best study of Icelandic society to date. Read more ›

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20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Companion to the Icelandic Sagas July 5, 2002
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent book about the society that produced the great Icelandic Sagas. This is not a narrative history but an effort to describe the essential features of Icelandic life. While the period covered spans centuries, there is strong continuity in Icelandic culture during this time and the basic features of Icelandic culture were largely unchanged from the settling of the island to the establishment of Norweigian royal domination. Written by a leading scholar of Icelandic literature and history, this volume describes the material basis for Icelandic life, provides a good deal of information about the ecologic impact of the settlers, and provides an outline of the major historical events in the period from the settling of Iceland to the beginning of Norweigian lordship. The center of the book, however, is a detailed and lucid discussion of the unique political and legal structure of Iceland. Iceland was settled by Norse fleeing the emerging powers of monarchs in mainland Scandinavia. The near subsistence nature of Iceland's economy required dispersion of people across all the viable portions of the island and the absence of useful cash crops and other sources of exports prevented concentrations of power. Iceland had no central government, no towns, and a legal system based on relative equality. Iceland was not a feudal state, there were no overlords, and even after the conversion to Christianity, the Church had little power. Governence and justice were essentially private matters, worked out by individuals either informally or through a sophisticated legal system that ostensibly was based on equality. The key figures in this system were chiefs who commanded authority by virtue of family and political ties, legal skill, wealth, and charisma.... Read more ›
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Essential Study Aid for Icelandic Sagas October 3, 2001
By Scott
Format:Paperback
Viking Age Iceland covers much of the same territory as Byock's earlier Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power; however, it also includes some more detailed information about how the sagas reflect the society that created them.

Byock attempts to show how the (mostly) fictional sagas can still be used for historical study. Hidden within the fanciful tales are many details of Icelandic history and culture. Because of this, it is a mistake to dismiss the sagas when researching Icelandic history. That's Byock's premise anyway, and he argues it convincingly with numerous examples from the sagas that illuminate everything from the Iceland's legal system to the food the Icelanders ate to survive the long winters of isolation.

The book was worth its price for the maps of saga locations alone. There were also a number of sections that helped me to understand the social and personal motivations behind feuds and other elements in the sagas that were unclear to me without the better understanding of the way Iceland's society operated that I got from this book.

Whether you want to better understand the sagas or would like to know more about the history and culture of the Viking period, this is a must-read. The writing is clear and engaging, and the information presented by Byock is fascinating and seems to be very well researched.

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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars An essential companion to the Icelandic sagas March 6, 2005
Format:Paperback
This is an excellent book about Viking society in Iceland, and Jesse Byock is a great authority on the topic.

Byock describes an Icelandic society that valued "order more than justice," and we see numerous examples of what he means by this as he examines how Icelanders kept feuds from getting completely out of hand.

Still, the book already is worth getting simply for the explanations of where all the action takes place in the Sagas, complete with useful maps, the descriptions of what Icelandic houses looked like, complete with archaeological house plans, and the depiction of Icleandic society as almost completely rural, with virtually nothing in the way of a town. As well as an important explanation of the Althing and its structure.

Plenty of us read one or more Icelandic sagas. But these sagas were written for people who knew quite well where Iceland was and where the various parts of it were located. They knew what an Icelandic house looked like, and they knew something of the terrain and the weather in the land. They knew how Icelanders obtained food and what resources the country had. And they knew all about the Althing (basically, their parliament). To understand these sagas, we need to know some of this as well. And Byock is wonderful at giving us this very valuable information.

There is a good description of how justice worked in Iceland. Blood vengeance was an option, but not a necessity. Compromise was preferred. Those who got too far out of line, say, with multiple murders, were outlawed. That left enforcement of penalties up to others. The system worked fairly well.

Two things about Icelandic society made the strongest impression on me. First, for many reasons, Icelandic society had enormous respect for truth.
... Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Gaps in my Family History Closed!
Written from a field investigation perspective, rather than an academic one, the Byock work is stimulating and intriguing.... Read more
Published 7 days ago by William E. Wyness
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting History
Probably very interesting to anyone interested in Scandinavian or European history, but I found some of the stories a bit hard to follow.
Published 1 month ago by Carol T. Wright
4.0 out of 5 stars Jesse L Byock-a professor
THE VIKING AGE - Iceland.

Viking life-feasting,farming & battling.
Powerful chieftans,church,marriage, kinship,
laws,courts,live stock and blood fueds. Read more
Published 9 months ago by BbP
5.0 out of 5 stars very nice and informative
This was a great book that I've read and re-read portions of. It has a lot of info and was interesting to read. Not incredibly boring like many other history type books. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Cannonrep87
4.0 out of 5 stars "No King But Only Law"
This book is either more or less than it seems. The back cover promises a lot, but the book delivers something rather different. Read more
Published on April 13, 2011 by Robert S. Newman
5.0 out of 5 stars Controlled Violence
Byock's study of Iceland during the Viking Age and the generations immediately following it, is not an exciting page turner, but is filled with information not easily available... Read more
Published on July 7, 2010 by Ron Braithwaite
5.0 out of 5 stars Important survey of Icelandic society
This study seems to have been written as a follow-up to Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power and covers much of the same territory. Read more
Published on January 31, 2010 by Christopher R. Travers
5.0 out of 5 stars The history of Iceland
I read this book prior to my trip to Iceland, and it really served to give me a good sense of the country, how it was settled, who settled it, and how the population grew over... Read more
Published on March 1, 2009 by Kendall Giles
5.0 out of 5 stars simply the best introduction to the topic
this is a great book with an excellent price point that introduces all aspects on settlement Iceland. Most supporting evidence is found from the saga literature and archeology.
Published on February 5, 2009 by Kevin Richards
5.0 out of 5 stars Political Correctness In The Age Of Vikings
With the publication of this great work & similar tomes by other scholars, the Norse people of the early Middle Ages are finally getting their due. Read more
Published on February 23, 2008 by G. Alvin Simons
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