Jesse L. Byock 
Feud in the Icelandic Saga 

Feud stands at the core of the Old Icelandic sagas. Jesse Byock shows how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society—the channeling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict—is reflected in the narrative of the family sagas and the
Sturlunga saga compilation. This comprehensive study of narrative structure demonstrates that the sagas are complex expressions of medieval social thought.


This title is part of UC Press’s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.

Feud stands at the core of the Old Icelandic sagas. Jesse Byock shows how the dominant concern of medieval Icelandic society—the channeling of violence into accepted patterns of feud and the regulation of conflict—is reflected in the narrative of the fami

Содержание

Preface 

Acknowledgments 


1 Introduction 

2 Feud in Saga Narrative: Its Roots in Icelandic Society 

3 The Syntax of Narrative Elements 

4 Units of Travel and Information and the Feudeme of Conflict 

5 The Feudeme of Advocacy 

6 The Feudeme of Resolution 

7 Feud Clusters and Feud Chains 

8 The Importance of Land in Saga Feud 

9 Two Sets of Feud Chains in Njals saga 

10 Saga Narrative with Low Cluster Density 

11 Conclusion 


Appendixes

A. A Brief Account of Legal and Social Terms 

B. Examples of Conflict 

    Material Sources of Conflict 

    Nonmaterial Sources of Conflict 

C. Examples of Advocacy 

    Brokerage 

    Self-Advocacy 

    Goading 

    Information Passing 

D. Examples of Resolution 

    Arbitration 

    Direct Resolution 

    Rejected Resolution 

    

Index 

Maps

Об авторе

Jesse Byock is Professor of Old Norse and Scandinavian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of Medieval Iceland (California, 1988) and translator of The Saga of the Volsungs (California, 1990).