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Feud stands at the core of the Old Icelandic sagas. Jesse Byock shows how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society--the channeling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict--is reflected in the narrative of the family sagas and the "Sturlunga saga" compilation. This comprehensive study of narrative structure demonstrates that the sagas are complex expressions of medieval social thought.
List of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
2 Feud in Saga Narrative: Its Roots in Icelandic Society
3 The Syntax of Narrative Elements
4 Units of Travel and Information and the Feudeme of Conflict
5 The Feudeme of Advocacy
6 The Feudeme of Resolution
7 Feud Clusters and Feud Chains
8 The Importance of Land in Saga Feud
9 Two Sets of Feud Chains in Njals saga
10 Saga Narrative with Low Cluster Density
11 Conclusion
Appendixes
A. A Brief Account of Legal and Social Terms
B. Examples of Conflict
Material Sources of Conflict
Nonmaterial Sources of Conflict
C. Examples of Advocacy
Brokerage
Self-Advocacy
Goading
Information Passing
D. Examples of Resolution
Arbitration
Direct Resolution
Rejected Resolution
Index
Maps
About the author
Jesse Byock is Professor of Old Norse and Scandinavian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of Medieval Iceland (California, 1988) and translator of The Saga of the Volsungs (California, 1990).
Summary
This study demonstrates how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society - the channelling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict - is reflected in the narrative of the sagas. It explores how the sagas are complex expressions of medieval social thought.
