Women in Old Norse Society

Jenny Jochens

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9780801455957
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: History

Jenny Jochens captures in fascinating detail the lives of women in pagan and early Christian Iceland and Norway—their work, sexual behavior, marriage customs, reproductive practices, familial relations, leisure activities, religious practices, and legal constraints and protections. Women in Old Norse Society places particular emphasis on changing sexual mores and the impact of Christianity as imposed by the clergy and Norwegian kings. It also demonstrates the vital role women played in economic production.

Notes

PREFACE

1. By “Old Norse” I mean “Old West-nordic,” the language spoken by the Norwegian immigrants who arrived in Iceland from the late ninth century. Subsequently undergoing changes in the two countries, it became Norwegian and Icelandic respectively. Throughout the medieval period “Old Norse” encompasses both languages, but the overwhelming majority of Old Norse manuscripts were written in Icelandic. Unfortunately, for reasons of brevity, “Icelandic” cannot be accommodated in the title. On these problems, see Jónas Kristjánsson 1993.

2. “The sagas of Icelanders,” coined from the Icelandic (Íslendingasǫgur, is increasingly replacing the term “family sagas” in English and will be used in this book.

3. It will be published by University of Pennsylvania Press in 1996. Henceforth, it will be referred to as ONIW. In this work, I shall pay particular attention to divine female figures and four vivid images of human women, the warrior, the prophetess or sorceress, the revenger, and the whetter.

4. Duby 1980, 147.

5. With the exception of physical lovemaking, the subject of love — heterosexual and homosocial bonding — will not be treated in these books, but I hope to turn to them in the future. For a preliminary version, see Jochens 1992.

6. Grønbech 1909–1912 and Grönbech 1932.

INTRODUCTION

1. The meeting may have taken place in the year 999; see Ólafía Einarsdóttir 1964.

2. The statement comes from Ari’s “Book of Icelanders” (Íslendingabók); the text is found in the series Íslenzk. fornrit vol. 1, and the passage occurs in chap. 7, p. 17. The following texts from this series will be cited by abbreviated title, volume (without series indication), chapter, and page (in this case Ísl 1.7:17). In Chapter 3 I return to the continuation of this law which ordered the abolition of infanticide.

3. On the conversion, see Jón Hnefill Aðalsteinsson 1978.

4. On Benjamin’s use of Geschichtsschreibung, see his essay “The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov,” in Benjamin 1955, 83–109, esp. 97, and his “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” Benjamin 1955, 255–66.

5. The sources are discussed more fully in the Appendix.

6. Two other genres, the heroic sagas (fornaldarsǫgur) and the chivalric sagas (riddarasǫgur), are used occasionally here to test the mentality of the authors on specific issues, but their full exploitation is reserved for my study of images.

7. I am grateful to Ian Baldwin and Davíð Erlingsson for help with this paragraph.

8. Two are mentioned in Landnámabók, a record of four hundred of the original settlers and the land they appropriated (landnám); see, for example, Lnd 1:377 and 74. On this text, see Appendix n. 1.

9. The name is found only in the late Hrana saga hrings, a saga that exists only in manuscripts from the nineteenth century. For the reference to Svartá, see Íslendinga sögur 1949, 9:417

10. Likewise, the third most important Christian celebration after Christmas Jól) and Easter (Páskar) was called Hvítasunna (White Sunday; cf. English Whitsun).

CHAPTER ONE. GUÐNÝ BǪÐVARSDÓTTIR AND GUÐRÚN GJÚKADÓTTIR: NORDIC-GERMANIC CONTINUITY

1. The historicity of Sigurðr is questionable; his name has been associated with the Merovingian king Sigibert from the sixth century, known from Gregory of Tours, and with Arminius, leader of the Cherusci tribe in the first century and known by contemporary Roman historians.

2. Storm 1888, 24, 126, 326; Flat 3:525.

3. References to Sturlunga saga (volume and page in the 1946 edition) will henceforward appear in the text. For a more recent edition, see Appendix, n. 28.

4. Nonetheless, Bǫðvarr was among five named Icelandic chieftains singled out for special opprobrium for their sexual behavior in a letter from the Norwegian Archbishop Eysteinn in 1180 (DI 1:260–64).

5. They are listed in the following order: Þórðr, Sighvatr, Snorri, Helga, and Vigdís (1:52). When Sturla died in 1183, the boys’ ages were given as eighteen (Þórðr), thirteen (Sighvatr), and five (Snorri; 1:229). Sons were almost always listed before daughters, so we cannot conclude that the girls were younger. If they were older, they would have been born during the first five years of the marriage, suggesting that Guðný was in her late teens when married and thus ready for reproduction. If Þórðr was the oldest, the infertile years would suggest that she had not yet reached menarche. Of course, the spacing of Guðný’s sons would have allowed for births in the intervals. If Snorri was only three at his father’s death, as suggested by other passages, the girls could still be younger than the boys.

6. On fostering, see Kreutzer 1987, 221–34, and Jochens 1996b.

7. Recently Sverrir Tómasson has suggested that by sending Snorri away, Sturla may have intended to leave a greater share of his inheritance to the two older sons, as fathers on the Continent did when they sent younger sons to a monastery; see Íbm 1:369. For a case in the context of the sagas of Icelanders, see Þorkell and Þiðrandi in Fld 11.4:221–22.

8. On the importance for Snorri himself, see Jochens 1994b.

9. For a discussion of sources, see Appendix. The sagas of Icelanders (and the kings’ sagas) are available in the series Íslenzk fornrit (ÍF) and the former also appear in Íslendinga sögur 1987 (ÍS). See Introduction, n. 2, for citation principles. Practically all these texts have been translated into English. For a comprehensive list, see Fry 1980 and Acker 1993.

10. On this episode, see Bjarni Einarsson, “Hörð höfuðbein,” in Bjarni Einarsson 1987,107–14, Heller 1984, and Helgi Þorláksson 1992. The date of Snorri’s death comes from the so-called Ævi Snorragoða (4:185–86), thought to bewritten by Ari Þorgilsson, the author of Íslendingabók; see Einar Ól. Sveinsson’s introduction (ÍF 4:xi–xiv).

11. The genealogy can be worked out from many texts; see, for example, St 1:64.

12. Sturla’s fourteen children, evenly divided between legitimate and illegitimate, were more than matched by Snorri’s nineteen legitimate and three illegitimate children.

13. The family arrived when the country was “completely settled” (albyggt) and had to receive land from others (Lnd 1:180).

14....

Table of contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• ONE Guðný Bǫðvarsdóttir and Guðrún Gjúkadóttir: Nordic-Germanic Continuity
• TWO Marriage
• THREE Reproduction
• FOUR Leisure
• FIVE Work
• SIX The Economics of Homespun
• Conclusion
• Appendix: Sources
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Bibliography