essay
The medieval Icelandic outlaw: lifestyle, saga, and legend
From sagas to society : comparative approaches to early Iceland • Enfield Lock, Middlesex, Uk • Published In 1992 • Pages: 189-203
By: Amory, Frederic.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This is a study of the outlaw in medieval Icelandic society. Amory discusses the legal concept of outlawry in Iceland, the sagas as literary models of outlaw biography, and the folkloric approach to the outlaw sagas. To these the author adds the social aspects of outlawry in which outlaws, for example, band together to form microsocieties within the society as a whole. The text contains data on the life-styles of outlaws, and their relationship to the GOðI or chieftains who offer them refuge and their patronage and protection from prosecution in return for the outlaws' services doing manual work and as assassins in the settlement of old scores in the feuds between chieftains.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Verbal arts
- Districts
- Legal norms
- Crime
- Offenses against life
- Execution of justice
- 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
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Educator
- 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
- ninth-thirteenth centuries
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- general Iceland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Frederic Amory
- For bibliographical references see document 10: [Gísli Pálsson]
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93150093
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Icelanders