article
Law and literature in medieval Iceland
Ethnos • 57 • Published In 1992 • Pages: 31-49
By: Durrenberger, E. Paul.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Medieval Iceland was a stratified society without a state to enforce differential access to resources. Like other stateless societies its law defined private rather than public delicts. It did so in terms of the concepts of individual holiness, inviolateness, and ways one could lose holiness by violating other people's holiness. This concept was central to notions of honor. As the institutional structure collapsed, so did concepts of honor. Icelanders recorded their law and sagas about their past and the 13th century as a response to these changes (p. 31).
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Theoretical orientation in research and its results
- Vocabulary
- Real property
- Verbal arts
- Ethics
- Districts
- Legal norms
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Early Icelanders
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2004
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Europe
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Scandinavia
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- article
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- John Beierle ; 2002
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- tenth-thirteenth centuries AD
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- general Iceland
- NotesAdditional notes
- E. Paul Durrenberger
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 48-49)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 45053696
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Icelanders