Jakobsson, THE PROCESS OF STATE FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

THE PROCESS OF STATE-FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

by Sverrir Jakobsson

Abstract: In this article the process of Iceland becoming a part of the kingdom in Norway is analyzed in
view of internal factors which lead to the consolidation of power and the creation of territorial states in the
early thirteenth century. The church brought to Iceland a new agenda through its campaign for peace and
social stability, but an unintentional consequence of the separation of secular and ecclesiastical power was
that some families and regional networks became stronger at the expense of others. A new elite sought ter-
ritorial power but the new system was inherently unstable as the preeminent chieftains each sought to be-
come sole ruler of the country. The nature of warfare changed, with the introduction of pitched battles and
the constant harassing of farmers on a regional basis. As a result, the rule of a monarch began to seem the
only guarantee for peace and stability.
Key words: medieval Europe, Icelandic Commonwealth, state-formation, royal power, territorializing of
power, social networks, landholding, Peace of God, warfare, “the first European revolution.”

1. I

NTRODUCTION

From the time of its colonization around 870 until 1262–1264, Iceland and the Ice-
landers were among the anomalies of world history, a land and a people without any
ruler, government or executive. This state of affairs is commonly depicted as having
lasted until Iceland became a part of Norway, and is often referred to as the period of
the republic or commonwealth. Over those centuries Iceland was a free state sur-
rounded by monarchies, a fact that has been seen as of some significance for European
history.

During this period, too, a great deal of literature was produced in an Icelandic

society probably “unique in existing without any central power for centuries after
Christianity had brought to the country the art of writing on parchment in the Latin
alphabet.”

These literary works are thus of inestimable value for the history of

government in Europe, as they provide a comparative view of state-formation in
Europe by offering insights into the functioning of a pre-state society.

The aim of this article is to analyze the process of state-formation in Iceland in

light of some general models of state-formation in Europe in the Middle Ages. Among
causal factors that will be investigated are changes in land-holding structure, the role
of the clergy and the nature of warfare and coercive power. The period under consid-
eration runs from around 1100, when literacy was introduced into pre-state Iceland,
until about 1300, when Iceland had become an integral part of the Norwegian monar-
chical state.

TATE

ORMATION IN

EDIEVAL

UROPE

—S

OME

ERSPECTIVES

In On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State, originally published in 1970, Joseph
Strayer argues that the modern state, however we perceive it today, is based on a pat-
tern that emerged in Europe between 1100 and 1600. Strayer focuses on the top-down
aspect of the process, on the developing practices and assumptions concerning the
political administration of larger territories. The key element, in Strayer’s view, con-
sists in the establishment of increasingly effective modes of management of ever lar-

Den arnnamagnæanske Samling, Nordisk Forskningsinstitut, Njalsgade 136, DK 2300 København S.

See, for example, Michael Borgolte, Europa entdeckt seine Vielfalt, 1050–1250, Handbuch der

Geschichte Europas 3 (Stuttgart 2002) 211–220.

Gunnar Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years: The History of a Marginal Society (London 2000) 1.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

ger territories, established on behalf of rulers by growing bodies of professional ad-
ministrators. As Strayer depicts it, the development of the modern state is chiefly an
ongoing process of inventing and adopting more effective ways of collecting and hus-
banding resources, of controlling their employment, of providing services (especially
judicial and “police” services) to local communities. As he remarks pointedly, “the
first permanent institutions in Western Europe dealt with internal not external affairs.
High courts of justice and Treasury Departments existed long before Foreign Offices
and Departments of Defense.”

The individuals active in these primordial offices play

the key role in making individuals and groups accept and value the existence of a cen-
trally controlled framework of rule, to which they increasingly refer in defining their
interests and obligations, and to develop a sense of trans-local commonality. Thus,
political units in the process of becoming states are not seen in the first place as con-
quering entities, but as the growing estates of dominant dynasties, assisted chiefly by
managers intent upon tending and increasing each dynasty’s possessions.

The process of state-formation was thus first and foremost the work of monarchs

and their servants. However, Michel Foucault has pointed out that “the reactivation of
Roman law in the middle of the Middle Ages—and this was the great phenomenon
that made it possible to reconstruct a juridical edifice that had collapsed after the fall
of the Roman Empire—was one of the instruments that was used to constitute monar-
chical, authoritarian, administrative, and, ultimately, absolute power. The juridical
edifice was, then, formed around the royal personage, at the demand of royal power,
and for the benefit of royal power.”

The main role of the state in the Middle Ages was

thus to do whatever benefitted the monarchy rather than to serve the local communi-
ties.

The extent of the power of medieval monarchs should not be overstated. Perry

Anderson has argued that medieval states were “an unstable amalgam of feudal suze-
rains and anointed kings,”

and that the contradiction between these alternate princi-

ples of royalty was the central tension of the feudal state in the Middle Ages. He ar-
gues that the role of the feudal suzerain “dictated very narrow limits to the economic
base of monarchy in the early mediaeval period,”

but that with the co-operation of the

medieval parliaments, the estates, general taxes were slowly introduced into Western
Europe: “In practice, the estate remained sporadic occasions, and the taxes levied by
the monarchy relatively modest affairs.”

Whereas Strayer refers occasionally to the

role played in state-formation by ecclesiastical personnel—who contributed to it both
a distinctive concern with establishing and maintaining peace, and some critical re-
sources, such as literacy and the use of Latin as a trans-local language—Anderson
places special emphasis on the fact that the royal government throughout the Middle
Ages relied heavily on the extensive clerical bureaucracy of the church whose inde-
pendent sources of income guaranteed that they would not become a financial charge

Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton 1970) 26.

Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–1976, ed.

Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, trans. David Macey (New York 2003; 1st ed. Paris 1997) 25–26.

Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London and New York 1979; 1st ed. 1974) 43.

Ibid.

Ibid. 47.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

upon the state.

Charles Tilly offers a different perspective, as he regards state formation as a

consequence of the accumulation and concentration of coercive means by two over-
lapping groups, soldiers and great landlords. He suggests that state structures at large
should be understood as secondary products of the rulers’ efforts to provide them-
selves with military resources. According to Tilly, “three different types of state have
all proliferated in various parts of Europe during major segments of the period since
990: tribute-taking empires; systems of fragmented sovereignty such as city-states and
urban federations; and national states.”

He classifies the monarchs of 990 as

“conquerors, tribute-takers, and rentiers, not as heads of state that durably and densely
regulated life within their realms,”

and defines the dominant interplay between war-

fare and state organization in Europe up to fifteenth century as patrimonialism “when
tribes, feudal levies, urban militias, and similar customary forces played the major part
in warfare, and monarchs generally extracted what capital they needed as a tribute or
rent from lands and populations that lay under their immediate control.”

According

to Tilly the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries were the critical periods for European
state formation, and he sees military competition as the underlying force behind the
creation and the ultimate predominance of the national state. In the Middle Ages, in
contrast, “kings rarely had much more armed force under their direct control than did
their chief followers.”

All these social models have had their impact on how historians view the process

of state formation in the Middle Ages. According to R. I. Moore, at the root of social
changes in Europe in the period when “the first European revolution” took place, “was
that from an economy of predation to one of exploitation—from an economy in which
a warrior aristocracy supported itself mainly by the profits of external and internal
plunder and warfare to one in which its descendants did so mainly on the surplus of
agricultural production.”

The fragmentation of authority, and the inextricable entan-

glement of such authority with the possession of landed property accompanied this
transformation of society. According to Moore, this society, conventionally regarded
as feudal, is more aptly described as clerical, “because clerical skills and with them
clerical culture now became fundamental to all exercise of power in the secular as
much as in the religious sphere.”

Changes in forms of landholding were the original

impetus, and the pre-eminent drivers of change were the disinherited. They made their
ways into monasteries, as canons of cathedrals and great churches, or into the service
of great lords. The distinction between clerks and knights rapidly dissolved in the
twelfth century: “The situation of both was the same: with nothing to depend on from

Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990, Studies in Social Discontinuity

Cambridge, MA and Oxford 1990) 21.

Ibid. 39.

Ibid. 29.

Ibid. 55.

R. I. Moore, “The Transformation of Europe as a Eurasian Phenomenon,” Eurasian Transformations,

Tenth to Thirteenth Centuries: Crystallizations, Divergences, Renaissances, ed. Johann P. Arnason and
Björn Wittrock, Medieval Jewish, Christian and Muslim Culture Encounters in Confluence and Dialogue 10
(Leiden and Boston 2004) 77–98, at 82.

Ibid. 84.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

the resources of their family all their hope depended on the favor of their lord, includ-
ing ultimately the only sure escape from this precarious dependency—for the knight a
rich wife, and for the clerk a benefice, which he habitually referred to as his longed for
bride.”

In short, the managerial perspective of state-formation adumbrated by Strayer re-

quires significant redefinition in the light of social, economic and coercive factors.
Both Anderson and Tilly regard the medieval state as a weak construction in compari-
son with its absolutist successor. Whereas Tilly focuses on the weakness of royal co-
ercive power, Anderson is more concerned with the lack of a strong economic base.
Both of these scholars, however, regard the Middle Ages as an important formative
period; Tilly depicts Europe as “absent” around 990.

With Moore’s theory of a Euro-

pean social revolution taking place in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the focus is
again on the Middle Ages as an important period of state formation. Along with
Anderson, Moore regards shifts in the economic structure as vital causal factors in this
transformation, and he also emphasizes the role of clerics in the formation of state
bureaucracies. In contrast, Robert Bartlett has noted the “freelance nature” of the ex-
pansion of Latin Europe in the Middle Ages. He regards the role of the state in such
enterprises as minimal and it is even possible “that the strengthening of some of the
major kingdoms of western Europe that is noticeable around the year 1300 actually
provided some kind of brake on the expansion of Latin Europe.”

Although some of the aforementioned scholars, notably Anderson and Tilly,

have

discussed state formation in a Scandinavian context, the main focus has been on West-
ern European countries. Some of Moore’s conclusion have been criticized, for instance
by Sverre Bagge. On one hand Bagge argues that state formation in Scandinavia in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries “would seem to have been more dramatic than in the
other parts of Western Christendom,”

but on the other hand he finds nothing to sup-

port the idea that there existed a class of professional bureaucrats in Scandinavia, who
depended solely on the king for advancement. “On the contrary, some of the best edu-
cated royal servants belonged to the top aristocracy. In this respect, Norway and
probably Scandinavia as a whole seem to conform to the eastern rather than the west-
ern pattern of contemporary Europe.”

He also doubts whether Moore’s picture of a

social revolution holds true for contemporary Europe in general, and notes that “there
seem to be greater differences within Western Christendom in the field of state forma-
tion and the development of the modern national and democratic state than in the cul-
tural and intellectual fields.”

However, he mentions both military and economic fac-

tors as crucial to state formation in Scandinavia, and considers the establishment and

Ibid. 92.

Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States (n. 8 above) 38.

Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe. Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950–1350 (Lon-

don 1993) 307.

see Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (n. 5 above) 173–191; Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and

European States (n. 8 above) 133–137.

Sverre Bagge, “The Transformation of Europe: The Role of Scandinavia,” Eurasian Transformations

(n. 12 above) 131–165, at 133.

Ibid. 158.

Ibid. 165.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

expansion of ecclesiastical bureaucracy a major step in the direction of organized gov-
ernment. “It is doubtful whether it would have been possible to bureaucratize any
other purpose than religion to the same extent under contemporary conditions.”

Iceland has not figured prominently in the debate on state formation in Medieval

Europe, despite its interesting idiosyncrasies, and the abundance of source material.
Within Icelandic historical tradition, the introduction of royal government into the
country has mostly been regarded in the terms of the introduction of foreign domi-
nance and the loss of Icelandic independence. That is a valid viewpoint in some re-
spects, but of limited use for the analysis of state formation, a process already under
way before the introduction of Norwegian rule in Iceland. This did not happen through
military conquest, but because of the voluntary submission of Icelandic chieftains (ON
goðar) to the Norwegian king at the end of a turbulent period, which can easily be
described/regarded as a civil war, lasting more or less from 1235 to 1264. In this arti-
cle, I will argue that strife was not the immediate cause of state formation but the re-
sult of a process of power consolidation that ultimately led to a fight to the death
among Icelandic chieftains seeking to rule the country.

It is my intention to analyze the processes that led to state formation in other parts

of Medieval Europe, and to investigate whether those same forces were at work in pre-
state Iceland. First, I will examine the system of landholding in Iceland around 1100
and the power structures that were in place within individual regions, mainly through
personal relationships and social networks. Of special interest is how regional author-
ity operated in a social system without a government. I will then analyze the effects of
the introduction of the church as a new system of authority, and its prolonged struggle
for independence from local power structures. Ecclesiastical authorities often had their
own agenda, and it can be argued that their campaign for a more secure society, for
instance through the Peace of God movement, brought about a consolidation of power,
as the most powerful among competing chieftains sought to pacify regions by
strengthening their territorial authority. Finally, I will take a closer look at how power
consolidation affected patterns of warfare, as local feuds were replaced by large-scale
rivalries between regional overlords who were able to command larger armies and
wage pitched battles. Most of these overlords were retainers of the Norwegian king
and tried to use that status to their own advantage. By 1247, the two main political
factions in Iceland had appealed to the king for arbitration and his participation in
Icelandic politics began a progress that eventually led to the introduction of state
power. Whether this new entity represented an abrupt discontinuation of local rivalry
or a continuation by new means is open for debate.

3. L

ANDHOLDING AND

EGIONAL

UTHORITY IN

CELAND

In 1096 or 1097 there was a census of Icelandic farmers who were eligible for taxes
or, more precisely, contributed to the funding of the parliament (ON þingfararkaups-
bændr). According to our only source, the Book of Icelanders (ON Íslendingabók) by
Ari “the Learned” Þorgilsson (ca. 1067–1148), the number of tax-farmers in Iceland
was 4560. It is not known what percentage of Icelandic farmers fell into this category,

Ibid. 147.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

but most scholars have assumed that tax-farmers were a majority, or even a large ma-
jority, among Icelandic farmers.

Although scholars have tried estimate the general

population of Iceland from this number, such attempts can never provide us with any
accurate approximation. One thing, though, is certain: farmers were a small minority
of the Icelandic population, the majority of which constituted of women, children and
various types of dependants, including farmhands and slaves.

Among farmers there also seems to have been a great social distinction, at least ac-

cording to the few sources available. In the Icelandic Book of Settlements (ON Land-
námabók), of which the oldest versions were probably composed in the first half of the
twelfth century, the number of settlers listed is slightly more than 400. The farms on
which they resided represent less than ten percent of the number of later habitations,
represented in the census of tax-farmers, and the farms which are listed in the Book of
Settlements are usually places of some importance.

It seems likely that in structuring

the memory of the settlement, the composers of Landnámabók chose to emphasize a
certain group among the first inhabitants; i.e., that only the farming elite was num-
bered among the “settlers.”

A distinction between farmers is also prescribed in the laws of the Icelandic com-

monwealth. Only one in nine of the farmers who funded the Icelandic parliament were
to attend its meetings, along with the chieftain.

It can be assumed that the same farm-

ers attended the parliament over and over again, and that they formed a political elite
among the farmers. Within this elite group the foremost figures were those who lived
on so-called main farms (ON höfuðból), which had the greatest resources and formed
a centre within a minor region of farmers.

According to legal sources, there was a set number of thirty-nine chieftains who

had a leading role at the Icelandic parliament.

These few individuals represented the

Icelandic political elite, but they were not regional overlords. Their power depended
upon personal ties with farmers who had pledged their following to them (ON þing-
menn). Such a relationship was co-dependent and the farmer had a right to shift his
allegiance to another chieftain, even if such occurrences were probably not very com-
mon.

Although the role of chieftain was mostly hereditary, his authority was to a

large degree dependent on the support of the farmers in his quarter and in his immedi-
ate vicinity. Chieftains sought to consolidate this support by forming social networks
in their home region, and through strategic marriage alliances with other chieftains.

We can see the mechanism of social networks through analysis of family sagas

whose events purportedly took place around 1000. From a close reading of several
sagas, it can be seen that a leader with a strong social network always had an edge

See Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years (n. 2 above) 44–45.

For an overview, see Haraldur Matthíasson, Landið og Landnáma (Reykjavík 1982) 23.

Grágás. Lagasafn íslenska þjóðveldisins, ed. Gunnar Karlsson, Kristján Sveinsson and Mörður Árna-

son (Reykjavík 1992) 421.

On the main farms or manors, see Magnús Már Lárusson, “Á höfuðbólum Íslands,” Saga 10 (1971)

40–90; Orri Vésteinsson, “Patterns of Settlement in Iceland: A Study in Pre-History,” Saga-Book 25 (1998)
1–29, at 17–20.

See Grágás (n. 24 above) 377, 400, 415, 427, 461.

See Gunnar Karlsson, Goðamenning. Staða og áhrif goðorðsmanna í þjóðveldi Íslendinga (Reykjavík

2004) 179–202.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

over a rival who was not equally well connected. In Eyrbyggja saga, the crafty Snorri
goði manages to overcome the heroic Arnkell goði through a strategic alliance with
the leading family in Álftafjörður, and he later becomes the foremost figure in the re-
gion through the marriages of his daughters with important chieftains.

Snorri man-

ages to build up a strong regional power base that extends over three regions, but in
the end his family’s position of supremacy passes on to another branch of the family,
as Snorri´s grandson makes Þórðr Gilsson, the ancestor of the Sturlung family, the heir
to his chieftaincy (ON goðorð).

In Brennu-Njáls saga, we can see how the main adversary and the ultimate slayer

of the sons of Njáll, Flosi Þórðarson, is a part of a social network that stretches
through the whole southern region of the Eastern fjords. The leader of this group is the
chieftain Síðu-Hallr Þorsteinsson, who is the father-in law of Flosi. Most of the farm-
ers south of Vatnajökull turn out to be either relatives of Hallr or connected with him
by an alliance. This group thus offers solid support to Flosi when he was pursued by
his enemies for the killing of Njáll and his sons.

According to saga authors, and we have no reason to disbelieve them, this system

of kinship and social networking was well established before the advent of any of the
following phenomena: Christianity, ecclesiastical organization and literacy. We can
certainly see the same mechanisms at work in sagas whose events take place in the
later half of the twelfth century. The clever Sturla Þórðarson (1115–1183) seems to be
hewn out of the same timber as his ancestor Snorri goði, and through clever political
gambits he gradually manages to undermine his chief rival for power in the Dalir re-
gion of Western Iceland, Einar Þorgilsson (ca. 1120–1185).

This system of social relations was not pre-Christian in the sense that the founda-

tion of the Christian church does not seem to have had any adverse effects on it. On
the other hand, it was decidedly not dependent on Christianity or any other structured
religion for its functioning or survival. Rather, it was a rational system of politics in a
society that was relatively egalitarian within the distinct social groups, and where sub-
tle jockeying for power was an art form.

Although rights to land were not surrendered readily, those who managed to be-

come the main power holders within society, the “first among equals,” seem to have
had unparalleled access to main farms, even if they belonged to another family. To
take just one example; in 1148 the farm Skarð at Skarðsströnd was inhabited by Oddi
Þorgilsson (ca. 1115–1151), an important chieftain and the brother of the aforemen-
tioned Einar. However, this farm had previously belonged to the Snorri Húnbogason
(ca. 1100–1170), who later had the distinction of being the lawspeaker of Iceland. The
farm had earlier belonged to Snorri’s father and in the 1160s the sons of Snorri, Þor-

Íslenzk fornrit IV. Eyrbyggja saga, Grœnlendinga sogur, ed. Einar Ól. Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðar-

son (Reykjavík 1935) 180–183.

Sturlunga saga, ed. Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason and Kristján Eldjárn, 2 vols. (Reykjavík

1946) 1.64.

See Sverrir Jakobsson, “(A)ustfirskur og hafði orðið sekur um konumál. Um rými, tengslanet og fé-

lagslega einangrun Austfirðinga í íslensku miðaldasamfélagi,” Sjöunda landsbyggðarráðstefna Sagnfræðin-
gafélags Íslands og Félags Þjóðfræðinga á Íslandi haldin á Eiðum 3.–5. júní 2005. Ráðstefnurit, ed. Hraf-
nkell Lárusson, Fylgirit Múlaþings 33 (Egilsstaðir 2006) 23–29, at 25–26.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

gils and Narfi, were resident there.

This family was one of the most important in the

region, and had at least half a chieftaincy. Nevertheless, they seem to have willingly
surrendered their ancestral farm to a more ambitious chieftain for a period. We do not
know how ancient these prerogatives of the most powerful chieftains were, but in the
thirteenth century, at least, chieftains seem to have been able to reside wherever their
pleased within their sphere of authority.

I use the term “sphere of authority” with some trepidation, as there is nothing in

the earliest laws of Iceland to suggest that the authority of a chieftain was regional.
Nevertheless, rivalry between neighboring chieftains was common, and we do have an
indication from both sagas and contemporary sources that some sort of “regional rul-
ership” (ON heraðsstjórn) was associated with chieftains. This is not to suggest that
only chieftains had such regional obligations; they may have shared them with some
of their most powerful allies among the farming elite.

Yet the sources are quite clear

that a chieftain such as Einar Þorgilsson inherited such obligations from his father, and
his failure to perform these to the satisfaction of farmers in the region led many of
them to look for protection among his rivals, the foremost among them being Sturla
Þórðarson.

Around 1200 this system of regional power seems to have been on the wane, as it

was becoming more common for a single ruler to have supreme authority within a
vaguely defined area known as a “region” (ON herað). In 1184 Kolbeinn Tumason is
called a “lord” (ON höfðingi) within the region of Skagafjörður, as if there were no
other lords there.

In the 1250s the family of Kolbeinn, the Ásbirningar, were looked

upon as hereditary rulers of the region, quite contrary to the spirit of the laws that did
not make provision for any such regional rulership.

It has become somewhat customary among Icelandic historians to take the exis-

tence of such regional overlordship throughout the country for granted, at least in re-
lation to the thirteenth century, and in some cases this system has been seen as having
an ancient provenance.

The common assumption is that a number of chieftaincies

came into the possession of a single individual who was thereby able to form a proto-
state (known in modern Icelandic as héraðsríki). This process then continued until
there were only some five or six such chieftains in the country. The problem, however,
is that these assumptions do not receive much support from primary sources. In fact,
most of the old chieftaincies seemed to have survived until the end of the Common-
wealth, and many of their formal possessors resurfaced before the end, if only to sign
them over to the king. It is, however, true that in the first decades of the thirteenth
century the traditional power balance of chieftains was eclipsed by the increasing
power that some of them had begun to wield.

A closer study of a concept such as “a domain” (ON ríki) reveals an ambiguous

Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above) 1.64, 66, 30.

For a recent discussion of this topic, see Orri Vésteinsson, “A Divided Society: Peasants and Aristoc-

racy in Medieval Iceland,” Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 3 (2007) 117–139, at 128–136.

Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above) 1.161.

Ibid. 2.192–196, 207.

See Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, trans. Jean

Lundskær-Nielsen (Odense 1999; 1st ed. Bergen 1993) 62–64.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

discourse about the spatial forms of power in twelfth-century Iceland. The concept of
a domain seems to occur primarily in descriptions of relationships between people
rather than in any sense of control of a region. Yet, chieftains also attempted to create
a degree of sacred space around themselves, as is evidenced by the demand made by
Þorgils Oddason (ca. 1080–1151), the father of Einar Þorgilsson, in 1120s that one of
his dependents, who had been granted immunity from vengeance in the presence of
Þorgils and on his farm, should also be considered immune in whatever region Þorgils
possessed land.

A few decades later, shortly after 1170, Sturla Þórðarson drove a

local farmer from his farm for providing lodging and amenities to chieftains hostile to
Sturla. According to Sturla, his enemies were not to have shelter anywhere close to
him.

However, within the context of the narratives in which these examples occur, it

can be deduced that the claims of Þorgils and Sturla are viewed as excessive if not
entirely unreasonable.

The lords of the early thirteenth century appear in contemporary sources in all their

self-confident power and glory. However, the legal foundations for their power were
extremely tenuous. Quite a few of them only held their chieftaincies in trust from their
kinsmen or allied local magnates. This distinction was not forgotten as late as 1250
when the possession of chieftaincies in the Eastern Quarter is hotly disputed, as they
had been disposed of without the consent of their legitimate owners.

From his exam-

ple, and several others, it can be deduced that the new domains were built on a pre-
carious legal foundation. Nevertheless, it seems to be the case that in just a few dec-
ades a group of chieftains managed to consolidate their power and form regional do-
mains where their status in relation to the farming elite was no longer that of a first
among equals.

It is certain that landed estates were an important economic base for the regional

lords and that concentration of wealth accompanied concentration of power. We have
many examples to demonstrate that such lords strove to gain control of as many farms
as possible.

It is, however, far from certain whether this type of land-grabbing was a

causal factor for the consolidation of domains or just coincidental with it. As far as we
can judge, there were no peculiar economic forces at work in the late twelfth and early
thirteenth century that would have furthered economic accumulation as a precursor to
political consolidation.

As with the control of chieftaincies, it far from certain that the lords’ control over

additional farms was dependent on ownership. The example of Skarð in the twelfth
century has already been noted, but there is no shortage of similar examples from the
thirteenth century. Of special note are the farms that were partly or in full in the pos-
session of the church (ON staðir) but were managed by powerful chieftains as if they
were private property. The introduction and proliferation of such property in Iceland
seems to have been an important factor in furthering the consolidation of power in a
few hands. Before proceeding further, therefore, we must examine the situation of the
church in Iceland and its role in the introduction of state authority.

Sturlunga saga, I, 21, 32.

Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above) 1.96.

Ibid. 1.472–474, 2.69.

See Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power (n. 35 above) 109–116.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

4. T

ORMATION OF A

LERICAL

OCIETY

The 1096/1097 census of Icelandic farmers marks a turning point in the social history
of Iceland, not only on account of its being the first quantitative evidence for land-
holding in Iceland. The purpose of the census is also of some interest, as it was un-
dertaken to establish data for the introduction of tithes into Iceland. The organization
of tithes was one of the first steps in the organization of an independent church in Ice-
land, and the method employed for doing this was indicative of a new kind of mental-
ity at work in Icelandic society, dedicated to fact-collecting and registration within a
literary framework.

Contemporaries were very well aware of the importance of this reform. Ari the

Learned thought its success nothing less than “miraculous” and was doubtless thinking
of the impact on the state of Christianity in the country.

But this reform also altered

the power balance in the country. The bulk of the farmers now had to pay taxes to the
church as an institution, and half of this tax went to their local church, to pay for the
upkeep of both priest and building. This tax would have been of no small importance
to those farmers who owned the churches. We can of course not assume that they sim-
ply pocketed this money or neglected to spend it in the manner required. But, in many
instances (Ari the Learned being one) a church-owner decided to assume the function
of a priest and thus collected the tithe income for himself. In fact, priestly chieftains
were common in the twelfth century in Iceland, although this constituted a remarkable
concatenation of secular and clerical authority. In those instances in which the priest
was an employee of the church-owner, his status was, on the other hand, usually rather
lowly and he was in most respects subordinate to the church-owner.

In some instances a church-owner might decide to donate all or a part of the land to

the church, in effect making it an independent institution. This did not lessen the con-
trol of the magnates over the church; in most cases they disposed of church property
(ON staðir) as if they were private property.

In the twelfth century only bishop Þor-

lákr Þórhallsson of Skálholt (r. 1178–1193) tried to uphold the church’s formal au-
thority over this land, but he met with much resistance and gained only a limited suc-
cess.

As most chieftains were also church-owners, their role in collecting tithes was

added to that of gathering the parliament tax. Their resources for redistributing wealth
were thus much strengthened, and this was of major importance in a society where
wealth was something an individual redistributed to advance his honor, rather than
accumulating it in pursuit of some capitalistic endeavor.

Although chieftains welcomed the introduction of organized religion in Iceland,

and used its resources to their maximum advantage, the new institution soon demon-
strated that it had its own agenda. The creation of the secular-clerical amalgam of the

Íslenzk fornrit I. Íslendingabók, Landnámabók, ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík 1968) 22. Al-

though Icelanders had been nominally Christian from ca. 1000, the first bishops very akin to missionaries
and until the introduction of the tithe they were dependent on charity or the income from their farms.

On the institution of staðir, see Magnús Stefánsson, Staðir og staðamál. Studier i islandske egenkirke-

lige og beneficialrettslige forhold i middelalderen 1, Historisk institutt. Universitetet i Bergen. Skrifter 4
(Bergen 2000) 191–216.

On this economic system and its function in Iceland, see Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verðlag.

Vaðmál í utanríkisvipskiptum og búskap Íslendinga á 13. og 14. öld (Reykjavík 1991) 153–170.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

twelfth century (often called the “national church”) was very much to the benefit of
the great magnates, but in the late twelfth century, following the creation of an inde-
pendent archbishopric in Nidaros in Norway, the international church made its pres-
ence felt in Iceland.

The subject on which the archbishop of Nidaros first addressed Icelandic clerics

and laymen, in 1174, is one very familiar to any student of European medieval history.
The main topic dealt with in his first letter to his Icelandic flock was the protection of
clergy, as well as women and unarmed people, i.e., essential features of the Peace of
God movement.

This is of no small significance in a European context. In the afore-

mentioned book on the first European revolution, R. I. Moore has laid great emphasis
on this movement and its role in the transformation of European society in the Middle
Ages.

Although the Icelandic elite appears to have been shaken by the words of the

Archbishop, as well as the enthusiasm of his subordinate and fellow reformer, Bishop
Þorlákr Þórhallsson of Skálholt, they soon realized that the archbishop’s message
could not be ignored. While they managed to evade some issues for a time, such as the
ambiguity regarding church land, others could not be so easily sidestepped. The
archbishop was particularly stern concerning moral issues, and violence towards the
clergy. On these matters something evidently needed to be done.

The issue concerning violence towards the clergy brought into focus an anomaly of

the Icelandic Church organization. Chieftains were supposed to secure the interests of
their clients, by force if necessary, and in a stateless society force was indeed often
required. Yet, a great number of them had also assumed ecclesiastical functions. By
the 1180s it was becoming obvious that these two functions could not be reconciled.
By a decree issued by the archbishop in 1190, therefore, chieftains were barred from
holding ecclesiastical office, and vice-versa.

This decree has generally been seen as a minor issue in Icelandic political history,

but in fact its effects were wide-ranging. Firstly, the church now gained an opportunity
to become an independent institution, even though the change did not seem significant
at first. Within the most powerful families some sons often still opted for an ecclesias-
tical career even if those designated for secular power could not. Indeed, the first
bishop elected after this change, Páll Jónsson (r. 1195–1211), successor to the formi-
dable Þorlákr, was a scion of the most powerful clan in Iceland at the time, the Od-
daverjar. In 1238 the archbishop in Nidaros made a further decision to separate the
secular and ecclesiastical offices more decisively, as he rejected a bishop-elect who
had formerly been a chieftain.

See Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir, “Um afskipti erkibiskupa af íslenzkum málefnum á 12. og 13. öld,”

Saga 20 (1982) 28–62, at 46–50; Sverrir Jakobsson, ‘Friðarviðleitni kirkjunnar á 13. öld,” Saga 36 (1998)
7–46, at 17–24; Sverrir Jakobsson, “The Peace of God in Iceland in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,”
Sacri canones servandi sunt. Ius canonicum et status ecclesiae saeculis XIII–XV, ed. Pavel Krafl, Opera
Instituti historici Pragae. Series C—Miscellanea 19 (Prague 2008) 205–213.

See R. I. Moore, The First European Revolution c. 970–1215 (Oxford 2000) 7–13.

Diplomatarium Islandicum. Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn, vol. I. 834–1264, ed. Jón Sigurðsson (Copenhagen

1857–1876) 289–291.

See Magnús Stefánsson, “Kirkjuvald eflist,” trans. Björn Teitsson, Saga Íslands 2, ed. Sigurður Líndal

(Reykjavík 1975) 57–144, at 137–139.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

Secondly, the consequences for secular politics were of some importance. In West-

ern Iceland, for instance, we have instances of several families whose leaders had
opted for a career within the church and now had to decide whether to continue along
that path or to devote themselves to their role as chieftains. The heirs of the chieftains
Einar Þorgilsson, Þorleifr beiskaldi and Snorri Húnbogason were faced with such a
dilemma, and all of them chose to remain priests—in the process more and less re-
nouncing their former authority as chieftains. The fourth family, the descendants of
Sturla Þórðarson, chose a different way, devoting themselves to the pursuit of secular
authority and quickly becoming all-powerful within the region. The priest-magnates
opted to become their clients and supporters, and were thus free to continue their ec-
clesiastical activities. Thus, competing chieftain families in the region went from four
to one within a brief period of time.

As demonstrated by this example from one region of Iceland, whose sources offer

a greater insight than in the rest of the country, we see a clear coincidence between the
separation of secular and ecclesiastical authority, and the rise of a single family to a
position of supreme importance. We have reason to assume that this was not entirely
coincidental but that the separation of secular and clerical offices actually contributed
to consolidation of power in the hands of a few chieftains. Of vital importance is the
fact that the chieftains still controlled the economic resources of the church, through
their control over church lands which was maintained throughout the thirteenth cen-
tury. Thus, although the number of competing chieftain families decreased, the eco-
nomic resources of the secular lords did not. Their power base was to large degree
intact and through their monopoly on physical force their former rivals were now
largely at their mercy.

However, the chieftaincies that no longer wielded any power at the parliament did

not melt away; the thirty-nine chieftaincies stipulated by law continued their existence
until 1262 although we can see from contemporary sources that actual power at the
parliament was in the hand of a limited number of chieftains, eight to ten at the most.

Other chieftaincies belonged to families that had little scope for influence, often be-
cause their heads had opted for a career in the service of the church. The separation of
clerical and secular powers made it very easy to push some families unto a clerical
track, thus effectively preventing them from the competing with the secular lords.
Whether this was the actual cause of power consolidation or not, it did at the very least
facilitate the process and determine its further development.

Of course, other factors might also have contributed to power consolidation. The

income from the tithe had strengthened the economic base of the wealthiest farmers
and as power consolidated in fewer hands, the most powerful individuals could en-
croach upon institutions such as the staðir, which the lack of private ownership made
open to such encroachment. As Jón Viðar Sigurðsson has emphasized, “those who
governed the staðir had a great deal of freedom in the control of their fortunes and
incomes.”

These institutions thus became important centers of the new ruling elite.

In 1196 around 10–12 individuals and groups of families are mentioned as relevant to a great dispute

at the parliament. In similar quarrels 1229 and 1232 this number is down to 6–7; Sturlunga saga (n. 29
above) 1.233–234, 333, 358–359.

Sigurðsson, Chieftains and Power (n. 35 above) 108.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

One might also point to more deep-rooted changes in Icelandic society that may have
led to greater social inequality, such as population growth combined with limited re-
sources or even reduction of resources.

Such trends would have had a long-term im-

pact, and contributed to a consolidation of power at some point. It is, however, diffi-
cult to explain why such factors should have resulted in a concentration of power at
this stage in time, around 1200, without any legal or political trigger. In fact, the only
major change datable to that time is the separation of secular and ecclesiastical offices.

The sources allow us better insight into this development in the Western quarter

than in other regions. However, the situation is unlikely to have been greatly different
in other parts of the country, although it should be noted that the Haukdælar family in
Southern Iceland did survive for several decades with a leader, Þorvaldr Gizurarson,
who was also a priest and thus greatly hampered in fulfilling his obligations as a
chieftain. The relative peace and cooperation between the two leading families in the
region that lasted until 1221 may have made this less troublesome for him. However,
shortly after conflict broke out in the 1220s, Þorvaldr retired to a monastery leaving
his secular powers in the hands of his teenage son, Gizur Þorvaldsson.

The concatenation of secular and ecclesiastical power in the twelfth century paved

the way for a consolidation of secular power in the thirteenth century, as established
chieftains had to choose between a secular and an ecclesiastical career. In the western
part of Iceland, this allowed one family to become predominant within a particular
region, and it is very probable that the effects were similar in other parts of Iceland. In
this manner, the growing independence of the church was instrumental in the consoli-
dation of secular power.

5. W

ARFARE AND

OERCIVE

OWER

Commonwealth Iceland has often been used as an example of a society permeated by
feud, where traditional customs imposed strict limits on the scope of bloodletting and
customary revenge killings were usually not allowed to develop into a full-scale ven-
detta. This picture of a society, which is very much evident in the sagas of the Iceland-
ers, is as a rule also taken to reflect the realities of the not so distant past, i.e., twelfth-
century society.

Informal rules of this kind around feuds and revenge are characteristic of pre-state

social control, which can also be seen at work in societies were state power is weak or
limited. As has often been noted, before the advent of state power there were other
mechanisms at work to ensure that society did not lapse into anarchy. On the contrary,
the pre-state forms of social control can often be seen as rigid and all pervasive. It is
through the loosening of the pre-state social norms and bonds that state power enters

Population trends in medieval Iceland are notoriously difficult to determine; see Karlsson, Iceland’s

1100 Years (n. 2 above) 44–45. There is evidence of climate deterioration that might have led to greater
scarcity of resources, but this seems to have begun as early as the first half of the 11th c.

On the politics of feud see conflicting views by Jesse L. Byock, Feud in the Icelandic Saga (Berkeley-

Los Angeles-London 1982) 26–38; William Ian Miller, Bloodtaking and Peacemaking. Feud, Law, and
Society in Saga Iceland, (Chicago and London 1990) 179–220; Helgi Þorláksson, “Hvað er blóðhefnd?”
Sagnaþing helgað Jónasi Kristjánssyni sjötugum 10 (Reykjavík 1994) 389–414.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

as an agent, whether this relaxation is due to internal factors or to pressure by state
agents.

Within Icelandic historiography, state power in the person of the Norwegian king

has traditionally been seen as a major destabilizing force, albeit in conjunction with
other external agents such as the international church. Less emphasis has been placed
upon internal factors, such as the power consolidation depicted in the previous chap-
ter. The major exception has been Björn Þorsteinsson, especially in his later works,
who views Icelandic landowners as the major agents of change, even if he also as-
cribes a central role to the Norwegian king.

This is not surprising, as the external factors that contributed to the end of the Ice-

landic Commonwealth are very much evident. The Norwegian king was interested in
gaining power over new lands, as well as increasing his power within his own realm.
The church was clearly an agent of change in Icelandic society, and the assumption of
its agenda doubtless contributed to the undermining of traditional authorities. In con-
trast, the internal agencies at work have seemed puzzling and difficult to explain to a
modern audience, living in societies in which, for better or worse, secular nationalism
is an all-pervasive ideology. Why would a society willingly surrender its independ-
ence in the manner Icelanders did in 1262–1264?

Nevertheless, external factors cannot provide us with a full explanation for a sim-

ple reason. The external agents, whether secular or ecclesiastical, lacked the coercive
power necessary to enforce their agenda. Although after 1247 Icelandic magnates re-
peatedly appealed their cases to the king, in the process making him an integral actor
in Icelandic politics, the king nevertheless could not assume power until the Icelandic
parliament and local authorities entrusted it to him. This happened in a series of stages
between 1262 and 1264. The question is: why did they choose to do so?

It is my contention that this decision cannot be fully understood unless we take

into consideration the radical alteration of coercive power in Iceland, which took place
in the thirteenth century. Instead of the traditional balance of power within a society
governed by the unwritten rules of the feud, a few families now gained supremacy
within their respective regions, and were able to monopolize the use of force. In some
instances, local farmers welcomed this development as conducive to peace, but this
system turned out to be inherently unstable. A status quo between the respective mini-
states was never reached. On the contrary, each of the regional lords sought to subdue
the others and become sole ruler of Iceland.

In the 1220s the Sturlungs, three brothers from the western part of Iceland, had cre-

ated different regional lordships for themselves, in the regions of Borgarfjörðr and
Breiðafjörðr in West Iceland and Eyjaförður in North Iceland. Instead of cooperating
in this endeavor, each of the brothers, along with their sons, sought to encroach upon
the power of the others. In the 1220s the most successful of them was Snorri Sturluson
(1179–1241), a noted poet and a historian, who took advantage of the prestige that he

See Björn Þorsteinsson, Íslensk miðaldasaga (Reykjavík 1978) 176–179; Björn Þorsteinsson and

Bergsteinn Jónsson, Íslandssaga til okkar daga, ed. Helgi Skúli Kjartansson (Reykjavík 1991) 120; see also
Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years (n. 2 above) 79–86.

Another side of the coin is the alternate question “why not?” which was raised by Sigurður Líndal; see

“Utanríkisstefna Íslendinga á 13. öld og aðdragandi sáttmálans 1262–1264,” Úlfljótur 17 (1964) 5–36.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

had gained at the court of Norway. Although Snorri was by no means the first Ice-
lander to seek advancement at the court of foreign prince, his use of royal patronage to
gain leverage in local power struggles was probably unusual and, as the sources show,
clearly resented by some.

The magnates of the thirteenth century were a separate caste, unlike the secular-

clerical elite of the twelfth century, but they had nevertheless imbibed clerical culture.
They became increasingly internationalist in their outlook, but as their ideals were
invariably aristocratic it was the courts of foreign monarchs that captured their imagi-
nation. A surge of interest in Icelandic courtiers and their relationship to the Norwe-
gian king is evident in kings’ sagas composed from the 1220s onwards, which is
hardly a coincidence.

At this time, several ambitious young sons of chieftains sought advancement at the

Norwegian court, including Jón murti, the son of Snorri Sturluson, and Gizur Þor-
valdsson. These youngsters belonged to a generation in which ambitious young men
could no longer pursue careers within the church, if they wanted to wield secular
power, so that belonging to the Norwegian court was a new way of partaking of the
glory of an alien institution. In contemporary saga literature, there is abundant evi-
dence that spending time at the courts of foreign dignitaries was considered conducive
to good manners and breeding. Respect gained at a foreign court could be translated
into political capital at home, the sagas seem to tell us, although such an outcome was
far from guaranteed.

Within Iceland, a lord who had gained social capital from his advancement at the

Norwegian court and cultural capital from his poems and writings could achieve a
remarkable ascendancy without having to cross swords with his competitors too often,
as with Snorri Sturluson in the 1220s. But ultimately the rule of the lords over their
region was based on the wielding of force. The struggle for supremacy among the few
lords who had managed to gain regional power eventually turned violent. Although
Snorri was not an enthusiastic warrior himself he used his followers to bully farmers
in the regions where he sought to gain a foothold. In the west, his son Órækja went on
a rampage in the 1230s, killing independent-minded farmers and followers of Snorri’s
rivals. By that time, the unity of the Sturlung family had evaporated, as Snorri and
Sturla each sought to gain advantage at the other’s expense. In the Borgarfjörðr region,
his kinsman, the magnate Þorleifr Þórðarson, supported Snorri and led his army
against the forces of Snorri’s rival (and nephew) Sturla Sighvatsson in 1237. Þorleifr
was defeated, and Snorri had to leave the country.

At that moment, the nature of warfare in Iceland changed. In the 1220s and the

early 1230s, raids against local opponents and small-scale skirmishes, reminiscent of
feuds, were still the rule, although we can see that the violence was increasingly char-
acterized by its role in the long-standing enmity between rival lords. From 1237 on-
wards, however, the lords increasingly fought pitched battles against the army of an-

Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above) 1.278–279.

See Ármann Jakobsson, “Royal Pretenders and Faithful Retainers: The Icelandic Vision of Kingship

in Transition,” Gardar 30 (1999) 47–65.

See Sverrir Jakobsson, “Upphefð að utan,” Sæmdarmenn. Um heiður á þjóðveldisöld (Reykjavík

2001) 23–39.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

other lord. Although causality rates were not high, this was violence on a different
scale than Iceland had previously known.

The explanation for this escalation of warfare has to be that the power of chieftains

to raise and control large armies had increased. Due to the consolidation of power,
they had both greater economic resources at their disposal and were able to concen-
trate these on rewarding their armed followers. The income of chieftains had always
been used to maintain their reciprocal relationship with their followers through gifts
and conspicuous consumption. But as the power consolidated in the hand of few lords,
such political alliances became less important than maintaining the support of forces
that could be mustered in battle. Reciprocity gave way to redistribution.

The first phase of this civil war occurred in 1237–1246, through a series of deci-

sive battles.

In the first instance, the forces of Sighvatr Sturluson and Sturla

Sighvatsson won decisively over the forces of Snorri Sturluson. Snorri was forced to
seek exile in Norway, where he became embroiled in the rivalry between King Hákon
and Earl Skúli. In 1238, however, the combined forces of Gizur Þorvaldsson and Kol-
beinn Arnórsson “the young” annihilated the forces of Sighvatr and Sturla. This en-
abled Kolbeinn to take over all the domains of the Sturlungs. Snorri returned to Ice-
land in 1241 but was slain by Gizur, probably at the order of King Hákon who re-
garded Snorri as a traitor because of his support for Earl Skúli. Órækja was forced to
leave the country after an inconclusive battle with Gizur Þorvaldsson.

In 1242 another son of Sighvatr Sturluson, Þórðr Sighvatsson, returned to Iceland

from the Norwegian court. He managed to revive the fortunes of the Sturlungs whose
supporters in West Iceland were less than enthusiastic in their submission to Kolbeinn.
In a naval battle in 1244 Þórðr managed to hold his own against the ailing Kolbeinn,
who died in the following year. Kolbeinn’s cousin, Brandr Kolbeinsson, took over the
leadership of his followers but his forces were annihilated in a great battle with Þórðr
in 1246. During this decade of shifting fortunes, it was strength in battle that decided
the outcome, and that depended on the leader’s ability to hold together a coherent
army. The lords had no other common rules by which to settle their differences and
thus the bloodiest battles of Icelandic history took place in this period.

It is possible that Þórðr Sighvatsson’s experiences of how battles were conducted

in Norway contributed to his eventual success against rivals who were not experienced
courtiers. His biography reveals that Þórðr tried to conduct himself like a chivalrous
Norwegian lord, placing great emphasis on the protection of women and churches in
accordance with the ideology of the Peace of God movement.

In 1246 the situation changed somewhat. The only lords left standing, Þórðr Sigh-

vatsson and Gizur Þorvaldsson, sought to end their differences by placing them before
the judgment of King Hákon. As they were both courtiers, their quarrels could be seen
as a matter for arbitration through the Norwegian court, even if what was at stake was
the lordship of Iceland. This was the first time King Hákon had an opportunity to in-
volve himself directly in the matters of Iceland, and as he had finally gained the rec-
ognition of the papacy, he naturally sought the approval of the church for his attempts

For a narrative overview, see Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years (n. 2 above) 80–82.

Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above) 2.38, 40.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

to subject Iceland to his rule. However, his involvement would not have been possible
if Þórðr and Gizur had not actively sought it. Before this, both Snorri Sturluson and
Sturla Sighvatsson had sought to ensure for themselves the support of King Hákon in
their attempts to control the country, although this ultimately proved to be of no use to
them in their efforts.

In 1247 Hákon decided the case in favor of Þórðr Sighvatsson and he returned to

Iceland as the king’s representative and supreme ruler of the country. It is evident that
Þórðr considered this outcome to be mainly for his own benefit; he intended to rule
Iceland alone as a subject of King Hákon in name only. Although no one seems to
have been able to oppose Þórðr directly, other chieftains were not happy about this
outcome and sought the favor of the king, in some instances by donating their chief-
taincies to him. The king was suspicious of Þórðr’s intentions and recalled him to
Norway where he became the king’s representative in Skien.

Þórðr seems to have

gone without demur, proving that no lord in Iceland could equal the king’s authority.
This is were the real strength of the Norwegian king lay; in the symbolic capital drawn
from the fact he was the heir of an ancient lineage which had held power in Norway
since the Viking Age. The sacred character of the Norwegian line had in fact been
strengthened by Icelandic narrators of its history who had contributed to the glory of
the Norwegian royal line through the writing of king’s sagas from the 1180s on-
wards.

The symbolic capital inherent in the status and ancient lineage of the king of Nor-

way was probably the main reason why Icelandic lords increasingly sought out his
support and, in the process, yielded their independence to his final judgment. It was
this symbolic strength, rather than wealth or coercive power, that made the support of
the king vital in the eyes of Icelandic magnates.

Of course, this depended upon

everyone accepting the jurisdiction of the king, which did not happen until Gizur Þor-
valdsson and Þórðr kakali reached an agreement to that effect in 1246. Before that
time, agents of the king such as Snorri Sturluson and Sturla Sighvatsson could not
utilize his support to any effective degree in internal struggles.

In 1252 King Hákon sent three courtiers, led by Gizur Þorvaldsson, to Iceland as

his representatives. The followers of Þórðr immediately opposed them, and the strug-
gle for power was rekindled. It is evident that Icelandic farmers, led by the greatest
magnates, were loath to tolerate this second round of fighting, which lasted from 1252

Ibid. 1.474, 524, 2.86.

See Ármann Jakobsson, “Royal biography,” A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and Cul-

ture, ed. Rory McTurk (Oxford 2005) 388–402.

The Norwegian trade-monopoly on Iceland is a determining factor often mentioned but its effectivity

is probably overstated. First, we have no evidence that the king ever tried to control the sailing of merchant
ships to Iceland. Second, foreign trade in Iceland was mostly limited to luxury items. See Helgi Þorláksson,
“Social Ideals and the Concept of Profit in thirteenth-century Iceland,” From Sagas to Society. Comparative
Approaches to Early Iceland, ed. Gísli Pálsson (Enfield Lock, Middlesex 1992) 231–245, esp. 234–235.

The historian Sturla Þórðarson implies that the agency of his kinsman, Sturla Sighvatsson, on behalf

of the king was more or less unknown until he was killed in battle 1238; see Sturlunga saga (n. 29 above)
1.439. Thus his opponents could afford to ignore this fact, even if some of them, such as Gizur Þorvaldsson,
were also courtiers of the king. Gizur went to Norway in 1242 but did not seek the support of the king in his
struggles in Iceland at that time. In fact, he seems to have been reluctant to do so until he was forced into a
stalemate by Þórðr kakali in 1246.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

to 1258 and resulted in the death of several chieftains. The shifting alliances of this
period are in contrast to the more permanently opposed factions of the years 1237-
1246. For example, in 1253 Gizur Þorvaldsson and Sturla Þórðarson resolved to settle
their differences through a marriage alliance but during the wedding feast, Gizur’s
farm in Skagafjörðr was burned down by a rival lord, Eyjólfr Þorsteinsson, killing his
wife and three sons. Eyjólfr was then defeated and killed in 1255 by an alliance of the
lords Þorgils skarði and Þorvarðr Þórarinsson, but they later turned on each other and
Þorgils was slain by Þorvarðr in 1258.

The lords were no longer constrained by their territories. Gizur came from a family

in South Iceland but he created a power base for himself in the north, in Skagafjörðr.
Although Þorgils skarði came from West Iceland and was of the Sturlung family, he
later managed to get himself acclaimed as lord of Skagafjörðr, while Þorvarðr
Þórarinsson, who came from the eastern fjords, sought to rule in the northern region of
Eyjafjörðr.

As far as they were able, farmers of good standing pressed for a permanent solu-

tion to the instability in the country, but the Icelandic lords were not able to provide
them with the desired stability, as no one of them was able to subdue all his rivals. In
the end, King Hákon used the forces for peace to his advantage. These included not
only war-weary farmers, but also the church, which had been promoting the ideals of
Peace of God throughout the period of strife. By playing the interests of Gizur Þor-
valdsson and another lord, Hrafn Oddsson, against each other, the king finally man-
aged to persuade Gizur to argue his cause at the Icelandic parliament.

The text of the covenant by which the Icelanders agreed to become subject to King

Hákon has only been preserved in late, and possibly unreliable, manuscripts.

If the

surviving texts are to be taken at face value, the preservation of peace and the up-
holding of the law in Iceland was the Icelanders’ primary concern. This would reflect
the insecurities created by the breakdown of social order in the 1250s. The system of
regional lords had broken down and indeed never did manage to function as a stable
system. Instead it was the source of constant strife and instability in the country from
the 1220s onwards. One reason for this was the changing nature of warfare. The re-
gional lords could muster stronger forces against each other and against hapless farm-
ers, resulting in devastating raids on people and property. In the 1230s this was al-
ready a blight in some areas, such as the West Fjords, and it only increased in scope as
the strife became more chaotic in the 1250s.

In this period of civil unrest, the brief period of stability established under the su-

premacy of Þórðr Sighvatsson offered a respite for many people, and the possibilities
of monarchical rule began to seem more attractive than ever before in the eyes of Ice-
landers. The degree of control that the king wielded over his retainers, who were in-
volved in most of the strife, could now be regarded as a solution, indeed the most vi-
able solution, to the country’s problems.

See Karlsson, Iceland’s 1100 Years (n. 2 above) 81–82.

See Patricia Pires Boulhosa, Icelanders and the Kings of Norway. Medieval Sagas and Legal Texts,

The Northern World 17 (Leiden 2005) 87–153.

See Sverrir Jakobsson, “Þegar Ísland varð hluti af Noregi. Hugleiðing um valkosti sögunnar,” Skírnir,

181 (2007) 151–166, at 160–162.

THE PROCESS OF STATE

FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL ICELAND

The Norwegian king never gained any kind of coercive power in Iceland. The Ice-

landic lords wielded this. It was only King Hákon’s ability to unify the lords to a
common purpose that made his rule an attractive proposition for the leading farmers in
Iceland. The class of elite farmers, long eclipsed by the predominant lords, resurfaced
in 1262, along with the few surviving lords, to pledge allegiance to the king. Over the
next few years the Icelandic secular lords began to act as a unified group. There were a
few scores to settle, but they were quickly resolved. For instance, Gizur Þorvaldsson
pursued his vendetta against Þórðr Andrésson to a bitter end in 1264, and Sturla
Þórðarson had to make his peace with the king in 1263 but was later rewarded for his
allegiance with the office of the king’s supreme legal official in Iceland, the lawman
(ON lögmaðr).

Gizur died in 1268, and Hrafn Oddsson soon inherited his mantle as

leader of the Icelandic elite, who was now simply called retainers (ON handgegnir
menn), a symbol of the fact that their authority now was derived from the king. A ru-
dimentary system of estates was introduced in Iceland, with the king’s retainers, the
church, and the populace (ON almúgi) each supposed to represent different interests.

The effortless resumption of peace in Iceland in the 1260s suggests that the

introduction of the state power in Iceland had been overdue. The proto-states that were
created by the regional lordships were unstable, the reckless internecine fighting
among the lords alienated the farming elite, and the church only supported such insti-
tutions that were conducive to the cause of peace. Out of such hardships and necessi-
ties, state power was introduced in Iceland.

7. C

ONCLUSION

The process of state-formation in Iceland was a long and complex one, but it is nev-
ertheless possible to offer a brief chronological outline, which gives us a clue to the
forces at work. First, one must keep in mind that around 1100, pre-state Iceland was
not a chaotic place but a relatively stable society governed by a landholding elite, with
the chieftains being first among equals. Order among relative equals was established
through a combination of regional networks and a strict system of normative behavior
that governed the conduct of feuds.

This balance of power was subtly eroded in the twelfth century through the

introduction of the church as a new agent in society. Even if the landholding elite kept
a tight hold on the church, and the income and authority that could be harnessed with
it, the new system of redistribution created by the tithe system benefitted farmers un-
equally, thus creating new social divisions within society. The creation of a clerical
culture formed an important shift in society, destabilizing the existing balances and
paving the way for the creation of a stronger secular authority. This gives credence to
Moore’s view that the church was an important agent of social change.

As the church began to wrest its independence from the hands of the secular elite

in the late twelfth century, it brought to Iceland a new agenda through its campaign for
peace and social stability. As an unintentional consequence of the separation of secular

Later on the lögmenn were usually two, but Sturla seems to have been the only lawman in the country

1272–1277, and he was responsible for introducing the first royal lawcode, Ironside (ON járnsíða) to the
country.

SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

and ecclesiastical power, some families and regional networks became stronger at the
expense of others, the most celebrated case being the Sturlung family of Western Ice-
land. This new elite embraced knightly ideals, its incessant quest for more power be-
ing tempered by the necessity of adhering to clerical norms of conducting warfare. In
the long run, the rules imposed by the Peace of God movement mostly benefitted those
who desired monarchical rule. Michel Foucault’s paradigm of justice in service of the
monarchy seems to hold true in this instance.

The consolidation of power in the hands of just a few families did not result in the

pacification of the country. On the contrary, the new system of alliances was inher-
ently unstable as the preeminent chieftains each sought to become sole ruler of the
country. The nature of warfare changed, with the introduction of pitched battles and
the constant harassing of farmers on a regional basis. Within this system of constant
strife, the rule of a monarch began to seem the only guarantee for peace and stability.
No Icelandic chieftain was able to subdue all of his rivals, so that in the end, anyone
who sought power had no alternative except ruling as a suzerain of the Norwegian
king. Only through him were the lords of Iceland able to rule in peace. Bagge’s con-
tention that monarchical power was closely interconnected with aristocratic interests
thus seems to hold true for Iceland as well.

The view argued by Charles Tilly, that military competition should be seen as the

underlying force behind the creation of a state, holds true for Iceland, with important
modifications. Although Norwegian rule in Iceland was preceded by a period of war-
fare, none of the forces on the battlefield was under the command of the king. He only
entered the scene as a Fortinbras, building a new society on the debris of one that had
self-destructed. The introduction of taxes and a state apparatus in Iceland was a coop-
erative effort by the monarchy, the aristocrats and the church, very much in the man-
ner Perry Anderson has sketched for Europe in general. In this way, the Icelandic ex-
periment in establishing a government without a state was terminated.

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