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"To a faithful friend, straight are the roads and short."-Odin, from the Havamal (c. 1000)Friendship was the most important social bond in Iceland and Norway during the Viking Age and the early Middle Ages. Far more significantly than kinship ties, it defined relations between chieftains, and between chieftains and householders. In Viking Friendship, Jon Vidar Sigurdsson explores the various ways in which friendship tied Icelandic and Norwegian societies together, its role in power struggles and ending conflicts, and how it shaped religious beliefs and practices both before and after the introduction of Christianity.Drawing on a wide range of Icelandic sagas and other sources, Sigurdsson details how loyalties between friends were established and maintained. The key elements of Viking friendship, he shows, were protection and generosity, which was most often expressed through gift giving and feasting. In a society without institutions that could guarantee support and security, these were crucial means of structuring mutual assistance. As a political force, friendship was essential in the decentralized Free State period in Iceland's history (from its settlement about 800 until it came under Norwegian control in the years 1262-1264) as local chieftains vied for power and peace. In Norway, where authority was more centralized, kings attempted to use friendship to secure the loyalty of their subjects.The strong reciprocal demands of Viking friendship also informed the relationship that individuals had both with the Old Norse gods and, after 1000, with Christianity's God and saints. Addressing such other aspects as the possibility of friendship between women and the relationship between friendship and kinship, Sigurdsson concludes by tracing the decline of friendship as the fundamental social bond in Iceland as a consequence of Norwegian rule.

Friendship --- Affection --- Friendliness --- Conduct of life --- Interpersonal relations --- Love --- History --- Iceland --- Norway --- Kingdom of Norway --- Kongeriket Noreg --- Kongeriket Norge --- Noreg --- Norga --- Norge --- Norgga gonagasriika --- Norja --- Noruwē --- Norvège --- Norvegia --- Norveška --- Norwegen --- Norwegia --- ノルウェー --- Aisland --- Aisland ka Fasojamana --- Aisurando --- Cynewīse Īslandes --- Eisland --- Gweriniaeth Gwlad yr Iâ --- Gwlad yr Iâ --- Ísland --- Islanda --- Islande --- Islandi --- Islandia --- Islandii︠a︡ --- İslandiya --- Islandska --- Islandya --- Islandyi︠a︡ --- Islėnd --- Iylanda --- Lýðveldið Ísland --- Peng-tē --- Peng-tē Kiōng-hô-kok --- Republic of Iceland --- Rèpublica d'Islande --- Republica Islanda --- Republiek van Ysland --- Republik Island --- Republika Islandii︠a︡ --- Rėspublika Islandyi︠a︡ --- Tin Bikéyah --- Tin Kéyah --- Ysland --- Рэспубліка Ісландыя --- Република Исландия --- Исланд --- Исланди --- Исландия --- Ислэнд --- Ісландыя --- アイスランド --- Relations

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Most medieval historians have explained the 'civil wars' in Scandinavia in the 12th and 13th centuries as internal conflicts within a predominantly national and implicitly state-centered politico-constitutional framework. This book argues that the conflicts during this period should be viewed as less disruptive, less internal and less state-centered than in previous research. It does so through six articles comparing the civil wars in Scandinavia with civil wars in Afghanistan and Guinea-Bissau in the last decades, applying theories and perspectives from anthropology and political science. Finally, four articles discuss civil wars in a broader perspective. Contributors are Ebrahim Afsah, Gerd Althoff, Jenny Benham, John Comaroff, Hans Jacob Orning, Frederik Rosén, Jón Viðar Sigurðsson, Henrik Vigh, Helle Vogt, Stephen D. White, and Øyvind Østerud.

Politics and government --- Civil war --- History --- Scandinavia --- Politics and government.

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This multi-disciplinary volume draws on the combined expertise of specialists in the history and literature of medieval Ireland, Iceland, Norway, and Scotland to shed new light on the interplay of Norse and Gaelic literary traditions. Through four detailed case-studies, which examine the Norwegian Konungs skuggsjá, the Icelandic Njáls saga and Landnámabók, and the Gaelic text Baile Suthach Sith Emhna, the volume explores the linguistic, cultural, and political contacts that existed between Norse and Gaelic speakers in the High Middle Ages, and examines the impetus behind these texts, including oral tradition, transfer of written sources, and authorial adaption and invention. Crucially, these texts are not only examined as literary products of the thirteenth century, but also as repositories of older historical traditions, and the authors seek to explore these wider historical contexts, as well as analyse how and why historical and literary material was transmitted. The volume contains English translations of key extracts and also provides a detailed discussion of sources and methodologies to ensure that this milestone of scholarship is accessible to both students and subject-specialists. ‘This is a brilliant and genuinely ground-breaking book, representing a significant step forward in literary and historical analysis of the Norse-Gaelic interface’. (Professor Ralph O’Connor, University of Aberdeen).