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David Huggins
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 Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 5:09 am Post subject: Viking |
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Hi Ken
To a great degree yours are valid points. Problems arise from how we view the term that has come to encompass late Germanic Iron Age Scandinavia with the blanket term 'Viking', and what it meant to those from the past.
Laws in general are local and set in time place but I think that what can be agreed though is Matt's reference to the status of 'nithing' which would appear to be a general concept in germanic societies throughout the period of this topic, expulsion from the family, clan, tribe and even state would appear to be held as an abhorrent sentence for an individual.
No doubt, some ' viking age ships where not unalike to pirate crews from history and contemporary times and composed of such outcasts and fugitives from the fringes of their own societies.
best
Dave
and he who stands and sheds blood with us, shall be as a brother.
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Matthew Bunker
Location: Somerset UK Joined: 02 Apr 2009
Posts: 483
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 5:25 am Post subject: Re: Viking |
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| David Huggins wrote: |
Laws in general are local and set in time place |
True, although 'local' can be quite extensive when they're the laws that rule an entire country and colonies of that country.
It's interesting to look at the Gulating laws in parallel with the much later Frostating laws (written down in the 13th century).
Although many of the older laws are carried over, presumably good evidence that they've been in place for 3-400 years and are still relevent (including the one about weapons for free men and how a shield shall be constructed), the law about not stealing from a man on the battlefield is not.
Obviously I'm only speculating but perhaps that's because of the change to Christianity which is pretty much complete by then. Nobody (well nobody in authority anyway) beleives in an afterlife of fighting and feasting and preparing for Ragnarok anymore.
Instead they get all concerned about things like 'having carnal dealings with beasts' which, apparently 'destroys his rights as a Christian' and for which the punishment was to be castrated and then outlawed. No law against it in the 9th century. Still, that's Vikings for you eh? 
"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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David Huggins
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 7:11 am Post subject: Re: Viking |
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| Matthew Bunker wrote: | | David Huggins wrote: |
Laws in general are local and set in time place |
True, although 'local' can be quite extensive when they're the laws that rule an entire country and colonies of that country.
It's interesting to look at the Gulating laws in parallel with the much later Frostating laws (written down in the 13th century).
Although many of the older laws are carried over, presumably good evidence that they've been in place for 3-400 years and are still relevent (including the one about weapons for free men and how a shield shall be constructed), the law about not stealing from a man on the battlefield is not.
Obviously I'm only speculating but perhaps that's because of the change to Christianity which is pretty much complete by then. Nobody (well nobody in authority anyway) beleives in an afterlife of fighting and feasting and preparing for Ragnarok anymore.
Instead they get all concerned about things like 'having carnal dealings with beasts' which, apparently 'destroys his rights as a Christian' and for which the punishment was to be castrated and then outlawed. No law against it in the 9th century. Still, that's Vikings for you eh? |
There is no argument I think Matt with how extensive 'local law' could apply. Without these laws how could your aspiring magnate hold his power, or a freeman maintain his rights,it seems to me that these freeman where all well aware of their own worth in law and custom and indeed often rebelled to maintain them free from interference from central powers.
best
Dave
who it must be admitted has laid with the odd beast ;-)
and he who stands and sheds blood with us, shall be as a brother.
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Ken Speed
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 8:43 am Post subject: |
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Matthew wrote, "Oh I couldn't agree more, but then if you have to have generalisations in re-enactment, better to have ones that are founded on something you have some evidence for.
However, I think that the law about not stealing weapons from the dead may well have been based on a belief prevelant across all cultures that followed what we might today call 'Germanic Paganism'. "
Well, I have to admit I'd be pretty upset if I went to a reenactment venue and saw some guy in sneakers, cut offs, and a t-shirt with a cavalry saber and a buckler claiming to be a Viking. He might actually find himself in serious trouble! Similarly, from what I've read here about the guys who claim to be Rus it seems some of them are pushing the envelope too far. On the other hand, there isn't a Viking uniform and in reality they had to dress for the conditions they were in. Sure, if they had them they'd wear warm clothes when the weather was cold, furs if they had them but if they were raiding along the coast of France and into the Mediterranean, they probably found something cooler than wool to wear.
OK, this law about picking up weapons on the battlefield makes me wonder if we're missing something. We know from the sagas ( See! Now you've got me doing it too!) that it wasn't unheard of for warriors to go into burial mounds to get heirloom weapons. We also know weapons were handed down. Further, I'm pretty sure that if possible spears were picked up and thrown back at the enemies that threw them in the first place. Face it, there's a reasonable possibility that the man who originally threw the spear has died by the time his enemy throws it back. Right? Also Vikings were Viking to get wealth. I wonder if the law meant that the weapons and wealth were to be picked up after the battle and shared out systematically. It doesn't make sense for the victors to just leave armor and swords laying on the ground.
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Matthew Bunker
Location: Somerset UK Joined: 02 Apr 2009
Posts: 483
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 11:28 am Post subject: |
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| Ken Speed wrote: |
it wasn't unheard of for warriors to go into burial mounds to get heirloom weapons. |
Ahh, but by then the owner's already been sent on his way with the spirit of his weapons. Mind you, they didn't always let them go without a fight. Hervor had to force the ghost of Angantyr to give her Tyrfing. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that weapons were often ritually killed by being bent or broken...partially to send it to the afterlife but also to make it useless to any thief?
| Quote: | | We also know weapons were handed down. |
True, but, contrary to what some of us may think, maybe you don't need to take all of your swords with you? 
| Quote: | | Further, I'm pretty sure that if possible spears were picked up and thrown back at the enemies that threw them in the first place. Face it, there's a reasonable possibility that the man who originally threw the spear has died by the time his enemy throws it back. Right? |
If you're lines are so far apart that you're still at the spear throwing phase then I'd have thought chances are evens at worse that the thrower is dead....but even if he is, you'd have to be a bit of a dolt to throw your spear if it was your only weapon. Even if he caught a spear in the face shortly after throwing his own, you'd imagine that he still had another weapon to hand.
| Quote: | | Also Vikings were Viking to get wealth. I wonder if the law meant that the weapons and wealth were to be picked up after the battle and shared out systematically. It doesn't make sense for the victors to just leave armor and swords laying on the ground. |
I've had that discussion with someone before. They couldn't see that it would be very unlikely that you'd be allowed to keep that very shiny, gold plated helmet that they picked up from the battlefield. If saga evidence (sorry) is to be believed, ships crews worked on a profit sharing basis which meant that everything got turned in and then divied up.
However, I wouldn't be to quick to dismiss something that might have been associated with firmly held religious beliefs. If the worst thing in your belief system is to die without a weapon in your hand then you'd want the reassurance that someone wasn't going to go picking over the battlefield to wrest your sword from your cold, almost dead hand.
Obviously your Christian enemies need be accorded no such respect.
Like I said, don't know enough about enough about the wider world of polytheistic Scando-Germanic beleif systems to know if there's evidence to support the theory, but it's an interesting idea....and faith does make people do things that make no sense to people who don't hold the same beliefs.
I'm not presenting it as an absolute, just enjoying mulling it over with others. It's a bit of a pub conversation really.
"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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Gary Teuscher
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 11:44 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Further, I'm pretty sure that if possible spears were picked up and thrown back at the enemies that threw them in the first place. Face it, there's a reasonable possibility that the man who originally threw the spear has died by the time his enemy throws it back. Right? |
| Quote: | | If you're lines are so far apart that you're still at the spear throwing phase then I'd have thought chances are evens at worse that the thrower is dead....but even if he is, you'd have to be a bit of a dolt to throw your spear if it was your only weapon. Even if he caught a spear in the face shortly after throwing his own, you'd imagine that he still had another weapon to hand. |
I actually could see this happening a lot, but maybe we need to define "spear"
Depending on how well the fighter is equipped, he could be anywhere from having a few spears and a side weapon to having one spear and maybe a short seax of dagger length.
The Viking age spears in general from what I know where shorter mulit-purpose types, that could be thrown or fought with. In addition they had jevelins, and I'm not sure how precise it was where a javelin ended and a spear began, though I believe they had dedicated javelins, I believe called Aegir or something similar (not to be confused with the demigod).
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Jean Thibodeau
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Matthew Bunker wrote: |
Interestingly, Gulating law # 178 states that it is a 'nithing crime if a man robs a fallen man on the battlefield by stripping off his clothes and taking his weapons'.
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Would that be any man or just the one's on your side or just your cultural peers ? ( The fine print of the law.  ).
Would this be only in the immediate aftermath of the battle but later weapons would be collected and kept if they where the enemy's weapons or collected and given back to the family of the fallen warrior or buried with him ? ( Again, just your side or for all sides ? )
When dealing with closely related groups having the same traditions and the same ideas of honesty and/or honour I can see that respecting the enemy dead would pay off in being respected yourself by your enemy should you be the one fallen.
One can sort of see the same thing today in laws meant to protect the dead from an indignity when a dead person's body is disrespected or robbing the dead or in cases where someone kept their dead mother in the freezer to continue to collect their welfare check: Some things in most cultures are things that are " Just not done " in that culture and considered beyond the pale.
You can easily give up your freedom. You have to fight hard to get it back!
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David Huggins
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 12:56 pm Post subject: Viking |
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As Christians, It would seem the Normans thought it quite reasonable to strip the dead after the battle on Senlac Hill, ( but this could possibly be covert Anglian propaganda sewn into the Tapestry perhaps..those nasty naughty Normans) and again after Stamford Bridge although there is no mention of stripping the dead, if the chroniclers are to be believed, burial rites appear not to have been afforded to the Norwegians by the victorious Anglo-Saxons whose skeletal remains are said to have remained in situ for a generation.
best
Dave
and he who stands and sheds blood with us, shall be as a brother.
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Ken Speed
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, I've always suspected that the weapons were killed/sacrificed to go with their owner into the afterlife and that making them useless (very likely publicly in one manner or another) was insurance that they would physically stay where in the grave.
Sure, lets meet in Canada some day. Canadians have GOOD beer! Right Jean?
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Elling Polden
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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I belive that the passage probibiting looting is in the part of the law conserned with murder, and deals with what you should do when you find a murder victim.
Looting in wartime is covered elsewhere, and allows you to take everything but the dead mans linnen. As one can't have naked dead guys laing about.
"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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Andrew W
Location: Florida, USA Joined: 14 Oct 2010
Posts: 79
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| Posted: Tue 22 Nov, 2011 10:13 pm Post subject: |
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One thing to remember with laws is that law and order didn't function the same way in the Viking Age as it does today. Unless you broke the law in front of the king or one of his agents who cared to enforce it, or someone turned you in, there wasn't much he could do to make you follow the law (there weren't policemen or security cameras to catch you, just your neighbors, who might like you more than they cared about sucking up to the king). At that point, it falls to your local authorities to decide whether or not to enforce the law. It's risky to assume that most or even many people followed the law, unless we have evidence that the law codes were enforced. I'm less familiar with Viking Age legal scholarship, but there's been some really good work on Late Antique Rome that shows how Roman law was more about rhetoric than it was controlling people's actions. The enforcement mechanisms often just weren't there.
I read law codes as an expression of how a political figure thought the world should be, or a statement of how he wanted others to view him as a ruler (a king who passes just laws must be worth following). I'm hesitant to read them as a reflection of what people were doing, barring evidence that they listened and complied.
And I'm not arguing that there was no law and order in the early middle ages; I'm just hesitant to assume that the king's law trumped local custom in a local context without evidence of such.
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E. Storesund
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| Posted: Wed 23 Nov, 2011 5:37 am Post subject: |
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| Andrew W wrote: | | there wasn't much he could do to make you follow the law (there weren't policemen or security cameras to catch you, just your neighbors, who might like you more than they cared about sucking up to the king |
Old Norse law seems at times to have been very ritualistic (originally it had to, as it was an oral society, this is still reflected after the introduction of literacy) and community-specific. The role of witnesses (of course) and oral contract, oath etc. was very important. All in all the morals as they come about in the texts reflect that the laws are there to ensure local stability, and therefore several laws emphasise ones duty in the community. It isn't necessarily as simple as "just don't bother anybody and you'll be fine". You'd get punished for not maintaining bridges or help pulling boats ashore. The laws go into even as childish stuff as if you get hurt while playing ball, it's essentially your own fault, or that if you bite somebody you're not really fit to have teeth. Those who follow the law essentially, from an idealistic standpoint, are in accord with society. Those who don't, risk losing their privileges and their social integrity, so it played a lot on the honor system that had consequences for everybody, not just individuals.
This is evident because they use very generic terms for anybody who does something in dishonor, spite or immorality, and therefore is not to be trusted.
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Elling Polden
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| Posted: Wed 23 Nov, 2011 7:23 am Post subject: |
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The laws have rather extensive sections on murder (vig). These describe how one should act when finding a corps, or when one has comitted a murder oneself.
Legaly, murder was punished by fine. In addition to this there was the chance of being killed as vengance, but even in such instances you would have to pay blood money.
The fine was decided by a number of circumstances. For instance, confessing the killing right away gave a lower fine than fleeing. Hiding the body increased the fine further, as would looting or disgracing the corpse.
The only cases where you could kill without paying fines where war, pure self defence, or if you caught a man in the act with a close female relative.
Many of the islandic outlaw heroes become outlaws after refusing to pay the fine after a vengance killing.
"this [fight] looks curious, almost like a game. See, they are looking around them before they fall, to find a dry spot to fall on, or they are falling on their shields. Can you see blood on their cloths and weapons? No. This must be trickery."
-Reidar Sendeman, from King Sverre's Saga, 1201
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Matthew Bunker
Location: Somerset UK Joined: 02 Apr 2009
Posts: 483
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| Posted: Wed 23 Nov, 2011 7:50 am Post subject: |
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| Andrew W wrote: | | One thing to remember with laws is that law and order didn't function the same way in the Viking Age as it does today. Unless you broke the law in front of the king or one of his agents who cared to enforce it, or someone turned you in, there wasn't much he could do to make you follow the law |
If you read the Gulating and Frostating laws you quickly realise that (much as in other early medieval legal texts, such as the Anglo Saxon laws of Inne or Aethelbert) the onus was on the individual and/or his relatives/representatives to pursue his claims and enforce his rights under the law and that most legal action took place at a very local level.
'Things' (or moots) could be anything from annual events that dealt with legal matters at a higher, provincial level down to a local 'thing' convened as required to deal with urgent cases (usually theft or murder) and, whilst it's true that there was no effective system in place to apprehend and prosecute those accused of crimes, once an accusation was made to the Thing, it would send a summons to the accused, warning him to appear before the assembly and to answer the charges. Where possible, a case was concluded on the testimony of witnesses but if the facts couldn't be established and both men could find suitable witnesses to swear oaths on their behalf (the more serious the crime, the more oath helpers you needed, and you didn't always get to choose those who would be called as oath helpers, so you had to rely on their opinion of your character) then it sometimes fell to an appeal to the judgement of the gods (where trials by ordeal could be chosen by the accused to establish their innocents.
The more I read, the more fascinating I find it, but it's getting a bit esoteric a discussion for this thread. Sufice to say that I've now read enough evidence to convince me that the law was enforced at a local level because it was within the power of the individual to see that it was enforced.
Of course, what happened on tour may well have stayed on tour.
"If a Greek can do it, two Englishman certainly can !"
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KD Shimomura
Location: Seattle, WA - USA Joined: 08 Mar 2012
Posts: 1
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| Posted: Thu 08 Mar, 2012 12:52 am Post subject: Glamfolk is active... |
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Hi! I am actually the webmaster for the glamfolk (Sorry our site has been out of date we have been very busy with some stuff on the organizational side)
I just wanted to let you know that we are in fact active and if you would like to know more about us check out our site: Http://www.glamfolk.com
Have a good day!
~KD (aka Kara Agnarsdottir)
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David Lewis Smith
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| Posted: Fri 09 Mar, 2012 2:51 am Post subject: |
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might be tacky but...
if you go to Armourarchive.org they have a forum of 'I want to be a...." and there are some really great kits listed there
David L Smith
MSG (RET)
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