The church and sexuality in medieval Iceland

Although the Church's regulation of marriage and sex was felt by all Germanic tribes, this subject can be studied most closely in Iceland because of the richness of its source material. Four problems are examined here, from literary, legal, and historical sources, namely marriage, divorce, clerical celibacy and extramarital sex. All three categories of sources agree that marriage was a contractual arrangement between the families of the bride and the groom, as known elsewhere among Germanic tribes. They likewise concur that divorce was possible and easily obtainable. Clerical marriage, among both bishops and priests, was seen as acceptable in the legal and historical sources; the literary sagas do not deal with this issue. That extramarital sexual activities were common, is clear from the legal and historical sources but, in contrast, the literary materials depicts Icelandic couples as largely monogamous and faithful. This discrepancy between the historical and literary sagas, both products of the thirteenth century, can be explained by the growing influence of the Church, which by this time was attempting to introduce clerical celibacy and marital fidelity into Iceland. The thirteenth-century clerical authors of the literary sagas, set in ancient times, provided models intended to improve the sexual behavior of their audiences.     

Reconstructing the past in medieval Iceland

Locating and dating sagas is a difficult but still important task. This paper examines the relationship between the Sagas of Icelanders, which are concerned with tenth‐ and eleventh‐century events, and the contemporary sagas of the mid‐thirteenth century. Drawing upon models from anthropology, it looks at how contemporary ideas permeated these historicizing texts and how genealogy and geography act as structures around which the past is remembered. The many political relationships which occur in Laxdæla saga are analysed in relation to those from contemporary sagas from the same area of western Iceland. Since it appears that there is relatively little in common between the political situations depicted in Laxdæla saga and those portrayed in the contemporary sagas, it is likely that Laxdæla saga and the contemporary sagas were actually written down in different periods. It is possible, therefore, that the Sagas of Icelanders give us a view of the past which originates earlier than is usually suggested.     

The right to social welfare in early medieval Iceland

As a rule poor relief in medieval Europe was practised in the form of charity by Church, monasteries and rich people. They distributed their alms to the poor, who received them gratefully and humbly. From early medieval Iceland elaborate social laws have come down to us that are remarkable in their originality for the period. We shall describe these laws, and investigate their history, development and the reason of their existence.     

The right to social welfare in early medieval Iceland

As a rule poor relief in medieval Europe was practised in the form of charity by Church, monasteries and rich people. They distributed their alms to the poor, who received them gratefully and humbly. From early medieval Iceland elaborate social laws have come down to us that are remarkable in their originality for the period. We shall describe these laws, and investigate their history, development and the reason of their existence.     

Kings and favourites: politics and sexuality in late medieval Europe

This article examines the use of ‘discursive sodomy’ in political critique against five late medieval monarchs and their favourites. Sources from Castile, England and Sweden reveal common themes that recur. Contemporary sources frequently stated that the king’s love for his favourite was excessive and beyond measure; that the favourite was always by the king’s side and thereby hindered others from approaching him. Critics further claimed that the king showed no moderation in his generosity toward the favourite and that the difference in rank between the two men made their relationship suspicious. This paper argues that all four themes included allusions to same-sex desire with the purpose of implying that the natural order and hierarchies were put in jeopardy. The main issue at hand was that the king had been seduced or even bewitched and therefore was no longer in control. He had let another man dominate him.     

Coercion,vengeance, feud and accommodation: homicide in medieval Iceland

Quantitative methods were employed to situate medieval Icelandic homicide in comparative context. Estimates of homicide rates were derived from samtíðarsögur, and found comparable with European rural medieval homicide estimates: late twelfth‐century Iceland was probably not as violent as a qualitative reading of the sagas might suggest. There were significant differences in patterns of vengeance between íslendingasögur and samtíðarsögur. In íslendingasögur, farmers committing homicide faced flight, outlawry or death; chieftains who initiated homicide might escape justice, although most became embroiled in feud. In samtíðarsögur, lethal vengeance following ordinary homicide was less common, and not a source of feud. These results generate a critique of previous notions of reciprocity in Icelandic vengeance, and support more recent interpretations of early medieval Icelandic society as a highly unequal, divided society. Both sources suggest that, although vengeance may have been legitimated in the language of ‘repayment’, vengeance is best understood within a cross‐cultural context as competitive behaviour designed to achieve superiority rather than parity.     

Ut primatum habeant: the early medieval church in Dalmatia and the Aquileian strategy

In the ninth century, the church of Rome, having lost power in the Balkans in the iconoclastic period, struggled to maintain control over the eastern Adriatic coast, which was divided between the Byzantine and Frankish empires. The Dalmatian church hierarchy strived to preserve the integrity of their province under the authority of the archbishop of Spalatum, but was challenged by the bishop of Nona from the Slavic Duchy of the Croats, who claimed the metropolitan status for himself. Their conflict was resolved at the Councils of Spalatum in 925 and 928. The article re-examines the ninth- and tenth-century context for the councils, and suggests parallels between the Dalmatian case and the earlier debate between Cividale and Grado over metropolitan authority in the province of Aquileia. It demonstrates that the Dalmatian church may have followed an Aquileian precedent.     

Charred remains of grains and seeds from the medieval high-status farm site of Reykholt in western Iceland

Abstract

Iceland was settled, primarily by peoples from Norway and the northern British Isles, in the 9th and 10th centuries. The first settlers brought with them from their homelands an agricultural system based on animal husbandry, of which cereal cultivation was an element and also with inputs from fishing, hunting and gathering of wild plants. There are strong indications that barley was cultivated during the first centuries in some parts of the country and that cultivation was at least attempted in other areas. However, Iceland is near the climatic limits of the barley-growing zone, and it is open to discussion how reliable a food source locally grown barley would have been. This paper discusses a seed assemblage of cultivated barley and archetypical weeds of cereal crops dated to between the 10th and 12th centuries AD obtained during archaeological excavations at the high status farm of Reykholt in western Iceland.     

The settlement of Iceland

The aim of the project is to ascertain whether, in connection with the exploitation of natural resources, any special ties existed between the boat grave people of Vendel in northern Uppland, Sweden, and the Anglo‐Saxons in Sutton Hoo in East Anglia, England, during the pre‐Viking period. The existence of cultural ties between these areas has been assumed in earlier research. The scientific methods used in palaeoenvironmental mapping of the study areas include detailed stratigraphical examination of both biogenic and minerogenic sediments in the basin of Lake Vendelsjön and in the valley of the river Deben. Different types of scientific analyses are applied in order to reconstruct the geological background and the environmental, vegetational and settlement histories of the two areas.     

蓝色沸腾爆发球!冰岛最忠实的间歇喷泉

冰岛虽然叫“冰”岛,但地热喷泉却是一大特色,境内很多地方都有丰富的地热和温泉资源,以及间歇喷泉,举世闻名.要知道“间歇喷泉”的英文Geyser就是从冰岛这里的间歇喷泉以及冰岛语而诞生,可见这里间歇喷泉的鼻祖地位.这其中最著名的便是Strokkur Geyser(史托克间歇喷泉),它的特点之一就是喷得够高,可以达到20～30米以上,但更重要的是它的“忠实”,比美国黄石公园的“老忠实”喷泉还勤勉,每5～7分钟就喷一次,所有游客可以看到爽为止,而且可以近距离拍摄,无人不大呼过瘾. 间歇喷泉位于冰岛首都雷克雅未克东北约70公里处,乘大巴一个多小时就可以抵达,很方便.冰岛天气多变,在去之前就有所耳闻,此番夏季前往,没想到就这一个多小时的车程沿途就经历了从万里无云,到时阴时晴,到了山谷区域更是大雨夹带雪珠,令人难以想象.不过好处就是看到了多处彩虹,在一片开阔地带拔地而起,非常壮观.这条景观大道也被称为冰岛旅游黄金圈,因为同时还可以前往距离间歇喷泉不远处的黄金瀑布.     

The public relevance of the church and Catholicism in Italy

Abstract

This article highlights the particular situation of the Catholic religion in Italy which distinguishes itself for its systematic organization, active association-forming and cultural vitality, unrivalled in any other European country either Protestant or Catholic. On the one hand the church in Italy still disposes of such a wealth of clergy and religious figures, dioceses and parishes, educational and social institutions, ecclesiastical groups and associations, and so on, that it can maintain a diffuse presence scattered over the national territory; it deploys numerous forces and resources which form an integral part of normal social relationships that animate civil society. On the other hand, the church and Italian Catholicism today are particularly active at a cultural level, with their contribution of ideas and experience on vital questions arising in social coexistence (ranging from the family to bioethics, from religious freedom to the secular State, from national identity to the multiethnic presence, and so on).     

The penalties for treason in medieval life and literature

Treason appears to have fascinated the middle ages. As the most fundamental felony, it struck at the rools of feudal society through a complex of crimes: compassing or plotting the death of the sovereign, betraying his realm to an enemy, counterfeiting his coinage or falsifying his signature, seducing his wife or the wife of his son and heir. The basis of the felony was the same — betrayal of trust by an attack upon the security of the state, its administrative or economic validity, or the legitimacy of the succession — whether directed against the king or some lesser liege lord, and the law made no absolute distinction between high and petty treason. Both demanded exemplary punishment and drawing, hanging, emasculation, disembowelling, beheading, and quartering were employed in various combinations. In rare and aggravated cases flaying alive seems to have been included. This paper, though surveying the legal, moral, and symbolic bases of the penalties for treason, concentrates on the evidence for flaying, which has largely been ignored. It reviews and analyses the legal, historical, and literary records of this exceptional penalty. The frequency with which it occurs in literature, and the varied thematic use made of it to express abhorrence of treason, illustrates the significance which that crime had for the middle ages.     

The evolution of urbanization in medieval Ireland

In Ireland, relatively little research has been carried out into the influence during the medieval period of the Anglo-Normans upon the evolution of urbanization. This paper presents a model (which primarily operates at a regional scale), the purpose of which is to explain interrelationships between the evolutionary processes operating in the early medieval period. It is argued that a settlement's relationship to a stratified land-holding system determined the operation of locational and temporal constraints, varying combinations of which influenced the functional development of urban settlements. Evidence supporting the validity of the model is presented and discussed.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

The conjugal debt and medieval canon law

Marriage in Western European society was the preserve of the Christian Church throughout the later middle ages. The law of the Church played a significant role in the formation of doctrine concerning that institution, including the sexual relationship of spouses. Adopting a debt-model of conjugal relations, the canonists maintained that each partner owed marital coitus to the other. The lawyers emphasized the mutually binding character of this obligation, and consistently dejended the right of spouses to exact their marital due, insisting that this duty could be abrogated only by mutual consent. As heirs to an ascetic patristic tradition, however, the lawyers tended to be suspicious of fleshly pleasure. A peculiar and ambivalent doctrine resulted from this tension between an appreciation of the intrinsic goodness of the married state and a distrust of sex, one of its major constituents.     

Zooarchaeology and Modernity in Iceland

This paper follows the lead of the increasing numbers of scholars utilizing the methods and theory of environmental archaeology within historical archaeology. This paper addresses the issue of ??modernity?? in early modern Iceland through the analysis of faunal assemblages from historic sites in Iceland. It examines the idea of modernity through the ideas of commoditization of animals as well as the improvement of domestic animals as seen through these faunal assemblages. There are a number of possible faunal indications of processes associated with modernity in the existing historic assemblages of Iceland though at least some of these have deep roots in the medieval period. Examining the idea of modernity through the faunal assemblages of historic-period Iceland both help refine the idea of modernity as well as reveal the medieval roots of much of what we term ??modern??.