Gripla - 01.01.1984, Qupperneq 93

DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN THE SAGAS
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pretation is correct, then Andersson’s categories, like Heusler’s, focus on
whether a settlement was made in or out of court. Since many settle-
ments in medieval Iceland, however, had legal implications even if they
were not worked out in a court of law, the presence or absence of legal
action actually tells us very little and leads to imprecise categorization.
For example, a resolution such as sjálfdœmi might be associated with a
direct settlement, an arbitrated agreement, or a rejected resolution. All
these had legal attributes such as contractual agreements, fines, and
banishments. The following three examples show how self-judgment
may be considered as an illustration of any one of the above categories.
An easily recognizable example of direct resolution is the series of
sjálfdœmi which Njáll and Gunnarr arrange privately at the Althing as
a response to the feud between their wives (IF 12, chs. 35-45). Gunnarr
publicly announces at the Althing the final resolution in this series of
small disputes (ch. 45). The Deildartungumál dispute in Sturlunga saga
(I, Sturlu saga, chs. 30-36) offers a reasonably well-documented ex-
ample of sjálfdœmi which comes about as part of an arbitrated settle-
ment. Although legally binding, the sjáljdœmi terms that Hvamms-Sturla
privately imposes on Páll Sölvason are so harsh that community pres-
sure later causes them to be changed in an open case at the courts. At
other times in the sagas an aggressive party refuses to consider the
possibility of negotiation. Such conduct forms the basis of rejected re-
solution, the third large category. An example is Hœnsa-Þórir’s flat re-
jection of Blund-Ketill’s offer to come to terms (presumably by granting
self-judgment) during Þórir’s burning of Blund-Ketill’s farmhouse (ÍF
3, ch. 9).
A more precise categorization of resolution, one that takes into
consideration Iceland’s system of limiting violence, is based on the
distinction between a resolution negotiated directly by the concerned
parties and a settlement brought about through the intervention of arbi-
trators. By showing the roles of individuals acting as advocates to bring
about resolution, such a categorization reflects more closely the varied
ways of resolving feud in the sagas.
The importance of advocacy to the Icelandic system of government
and conflict management lay in the fact that the chieftains, the island’s
flict is confirmed by an express reconciliation between hostile parties. The recon-
ciliation is either in the form of a personal agreement or of a legal arbitration”
(Icelandic Family Saga, p. 29; see also p. 23).