essay
Social ideals and the concept of profit in thirteenth-century Iceland
From sagas to society : comparative approaches to early Iceland • Enfield Lock, Middlesex, Uk • Published In 1992 • Pages: 231-245
By: Helgi þorláksson, Schudder, Bernard.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
Substantivism is a theory in economic anthropology in which adherents study simple societies '…in which little or no sense of the market exists and the notion of producing for a market is relatively insignificant' (p. 231). Since Icelandic society before 1300 A.D. is considered by the author to be a simple peasant society, and since the Icelandic sagas from the thirteenth century might be expected to display ideas similar to those described by the substantivists, the major portion of this work is devoted to a content analysis of the sagas which reflect this concept. This document describes the attitudes of medieval Iceland in regard to profit trading, status of foreign traders and merchants in general, the relationships between merchants and chieftains, and factors relevant to the prices of goods in the society.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Cultural identity and pride
- Price and value
- External trade
- Mercantile business
- Verbal arts
- Status, role, and prestige
- Accumulation of wealth
- Social relationships and groups
- Districts
- 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
- thirteenth century
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- general Iceland
- NotesAdditional notes
- Helgi þorláksson ; [translated by Bernard Schudder]
- For bibliographical references see document 10: [Gísli Pálsson]
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93150093
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Icelanders