Oh hey! I have actually read this one, and in the last year at that!
I really liked the review; when I read it I was more struck by the depiction of the transition from paganism to Christianity than from semi-anarchy to rule of law, but the transition the reviewer traces is very interesting and very much one of the real roots of the story.
The thing that maybe struck me most about legal proceedings, as presented in Njal's Saga, was
that pretty much nobody ever disputes the facts in any of the law cases presented at the Althing. (Side note: in the translation I read, it was just called "the Thing," which made me giggle internally every time a character declared he was going to the Thing. "What thing?" "You know, the Thing.")
Nobody ever says, "I didn't do that," or offers an alibi, or says that "he attacked me first!" It's all just arguing over points of law which range from the abstruse to the incredibly convoluted. ETR: I see the details of Eyjolf's trickery are in the Phoenix Wright video, so no need to go over them again!
One point that I think is relevant to the overall dynamic is that you don't have to be one of the ~500 patriarchs postulated in the review to be involved a feud, and in an important way a feud is more likely to be perpetuated when patriarchs are not the primary feuding parties. For example, much of the first half of the saga deals with a feud between the households of Njal and Gunnar. Njal and Gunnar are good friends and pal around together all the time, but their wives Bergthora and Hallgerda hate each other. Every time someone from Njal's household kills someone from Gunnar's or vice versa, Njal and Gunnar meet at the Thing, apologize, offer and accept a generous weregild, and hope that that will be the end of it; but Bergthora and Hallgerda have other ideas. Because there is no mechanism for mediating between Bergthora and Hallgerda --even the often-unsatisfying mediation of the Thing and weregild which is the best the patriarchs have-- the feud can't really end unless one of them gives up, forgives the other, or dies (guess which of these occurs.) It's also relevant that both Bergthora and Hallgerda have male servants who regard themselves as principally responsible to the woman of the house, rather than the man of the house, so if Gunnar says "It's over" and Hallgerda says, "It's over once you go kill that guy," Gunnar has no real way to enforce his edict.
+10! Thank you for pointing out the role of the women--it was such a big part of the book and I was confused that there was no mention of the lack of recourse for women in the society of the book in this review. The closest the reviewer gets is the note about Ragnar's wife refusing to sleep with him.
> It's also relevant that both Bergthora and Hallgerda have male servants who regard themselves as principally responsible to the woman of the house, rather than the man of the house
That strikes me as a curious arrangement for a patriarchal society. To be halfway effective at killing, these servants would have to be armed, so they are probably not slaves? An obvious solution for he patriarchs would be to simply agree to outlaw any servant who committed murder instead of paying the weregild until their wives run out of servants (or the servants wisen up).
Also, if women commonly held command over troops, it seems possible that their power was diminished by Christianity? So a saga about Christianization might paint women in power as petty, unreasonable and vengeful to explain why it was necessary to curb their power?
It's not so much that the women command troops as that they have substantial autonomy, especially within the household. For example, a woman getting married might bring some number of her father's household thralls with her, both male and female. These thralls are now part of the husband/patriarch's household legally, but naturally, they will feel attached to and responsible to the wife rather than the husband if there's a difference of opinion between the spouses.
So the society depicted is formally patriarchal (e.g. women do not attend the Thing), but women have very significant soft power and, in particular, wives are depicted as being very nearly equal to their husbands, both in terms of a household's internal politics and in terms of the household's relationship to other households. If the husbands want peace but the wives want a feud, the feud will almost certainly continue.
I also wondered whether the top servant in Njall's household may secretly have been the father of Njall's sons. Njall appears like somebody with Klinefelter's syndrome to me and would in that case not be fertile.
No beard and extraordinary agreeableness made me think he may have been quite low on testosterone, klinefelter appearing to be the most common condition causing such deficieny. Wild speculation, I admit, and probably leading nowhere.
Oh hey! I have actually read this one, and in the last year at that!
I really liked the review; when I read it I was more struck by the depiction of the transition from paganism to Christianity than from semi-anarchy to rule of law, but the transition the reviewer traces is very interesting and very much one of the real roots of the story.
The thing that maybe struck me most about legal proceedings, as presented in Njal's Saga, was
that pretty much nobody ever disputes the facts in any of the law cases presented at the Althing. (Side note: in the translation I read, it was just called "the Thing," which made me giggle internally every time a character declared he was going to the Thing. "What thing?" "You know, the Thing.")
Nobody ever says, "I didn't do that," or offers an alibi, or says that "he attacked me first!" It's all just arguing over points of law which range from the abstruse to the incredibly convoluted. ETR: I see the details of Eyjolf's trickery are in the Phoenix Wright video, so no need to go over them again!
One point that I think is relevant to the overall dynamic is that you don't have to be one of the ~500 patriarchs postulated in the review to be involved a feud, and in an important way a feud is more likely to be perpetuated when patriarchs are not the primary feuding parties. For example, much of the first half of the saga deals with a feud between the households of Njal and Gunnar. Njal and Gunnar are good friends and pal around together all the time, but their wives Bergthora and Hallgerda hate each other. Every time someone from Njal's household kills someone from Gunnar's or vice versa, Njal and Gunnar meet at the Thing, apologize, offer and accept a generous weregild, and hope that that will be the end of it; but Bergthora and Hallgerda have other ideas. Because there is no mechanism for mediating between Bergthora and Hallgerda --even the often-unsatisfying mediation of the Thing and weregild which is the best the patriarchs have-- the feud can't really end unless one of them gives up, forgives the other, or dies (guess which of these occurs.) It's also relevant that both Bergthora and Hallgerda have male servants who regard themselves as principally responsible to the woman of the house, rather than the man of the house, so if Gunnar says "It's over" and Hallgerda says, "It's over once you go kill that guy," Gunnar has no real way to enforce his edict.
+10! Thank you for pointing out the role of the women--it was such a big part of the book and I was confused that there was no mention of the lack of recourse for women in the society of the book in this review. The closest the reviewer gets is the note about Ragnar's wife refusing to sleep with him.
> It's also relevant that both Bergthora and Hallgerda have male servants who regard themselves as principally responsible to the woman of the house, rather than the man of the house
That strikes me as a curious arrangement for a patriarchal society. To be halfway effective at killing, these servants would have to be armed, so they are probably not slaves? An obvious solution for he patriarchs would be to simply agree to outlaw any servant who committed murder instead of paying the weregild until their wives run out of servants (or the servants wisen up).
Also, if women commonly held command over troops, it seems possible that their power was diminished by Christianity? So a saga about Christianization might paint women in power as petty, unreasonable and vengeful to explain why it was necessary to curb their power?
It's not so much that the women command troops as that they have substantial autonomy, especially within the household. For example, a woman getting married might bring some number of her father's household thralls with her, both male and female. These thralls are now part of the husband/patriarch's household legally, but naturally, they will feel attached to and responsible to the wife rather than the husband if there's a difference of opinion between the spouses.
So the society depicted is formally patriarchal (e.g. women do not attend the Thing), but women have very significant soft power and, in particular, wives are depicted as being very nearly equal to their husbands, both in terms of a household's internal politics and in terms of the household's relationship to other households. If the husbands want peace but the wives want a feud, the feud will almost certainly continue.
I also wondered whether the top servant in Njall's household may secretly have been the father of Njall's sons. Njall appears like somebody with Klinefelter's syndrome to me and would in that case not be fertile.
How does he appear to have Klinefelter's?
No beard and extraordinary agreeableness made me think he may have been quite low on testosterone, klinefelter appearing to be the most common condition causing such deficieny. Wild speculation, I admit, and probably leading nowhere.