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book: Narrating Law and Laws of Narration in Medieval Scandinavia
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Narrating Law and Laws of Narration in Medieval Scandinavia

  • Edited by: Roland Scheel
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2020
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About this book

Disputes lie at the heart of the sagas. Consequently, literary texts have been treated as sources of legal practice – narrations of law – while the sagas themselves and the handling of legal matters by the figures adhere to ‘laws of narration’. The volume addresses this intricate relationship between literature and social practice from the perspective of historians as well as philologists. The contributions focus not only on disputes and their solution in saga literature, but also on the representation of law and its history in sagas and Latin historiography from Scandinavia as well as the representation of laws and norms in mythological texts. They demonstrate that narrations of law provide an indispensable insight into legal culture and its connection to a wider framework of social norms, adjusting the impression given by the laws. The philological approaches underline that the narrative texts also have an agenda of their own when it comes to their representation of law, providing a mirror of conduct, criticising inequity, reinforcing the political and juridical position of kings or negotiating norms in mythological texts. Altogether, the volume underlines the unifying force exerted by a common fiction of law beyond its letter.

Author / Editor information

Roland Scheel, University of Göttingen.

Topics

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    Frontmatter

    I
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    Foreword

    V
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    Contents

    VII
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    List of Contributors

    IX
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    Narrating Law and Laws of Narration: Introduction

    1
    Roland Scheel
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  • Part A. Narrating Law: Legal Texts – Narrative Texts – Contexts
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    Chieftains and the Legal Culture in Iceland c. 1100–1260

    39
    Jón Viðar Sigurðsson
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    Making King Hákon Great Again: Law, God, Morality and Power in Björgvin, 1223

    57
    Hans Jacob Orning
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    Law Personified. The Ignored Climactic Speeches of Brennu-Njáls saga

    77
    Ármann Jakobsson
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  • Part B. Laws of Narration: Narratological Approaches
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    Court Poetry: Assemblies and Skaldic Verse

    91
    Hannah Burrows
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    What is ‘Good Law’? Law as Communal Performance in the Íslendingasögur

    117
    Kyle Hughes
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    Revenge or Settlement? Law and Feud in Early Sagas of Icelanders

    135
    Roland Scheel
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  • Part C. Narrating Law: Discourses on Social Norms
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    Berserks Behaving Badly: Manipulating Normative Expectations in Eyrbyggja saga

    171
    Keith Ruiter
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    Social and Diegetic Hierarchies in Cases of Thievery. A Study of Mǫðruvallabók

    185
    Daniela Hahn
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  • Part D. Narrating Law: Mythological Traditions
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    Feudal Law and Archaic Order: The Discussion of Different Social Systems in the Queens’ Dispute in the Nibelungenlied

    205
    Heike Sahm
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    History or Idea? The Legendary Laws of Old Norsemen

    225
    Jiří Starý
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    Vǫlundr – a Gateway into the Legal World of the Vikings

    255
    Anne Irene Riisøy
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    Týr, Fenrir and the Brísingamen. Tales of Law, Crime and Violence in Eddic Mythology and their Indo-European Subcontexts

    275
    Matthias Teichert
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    Name Index

    289
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    Place Index

    295
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
January 20, 2020
eBook ISBN:
9783110661811
Hardcover published on:
January 20, 2020
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110654219
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
10
Main content:
293
Illustrations:
4
Tables:
2
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110661811
eBook ISBN: 9783110661811
Hardcover ISBN: 9783110654219
Keywords for this book
Literature and law; saga literature; Scandinavian historiography
Audience(s) for this book
Medievalists, historians of law, scholars of german and scandinavian literature
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