Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 32
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ment where both different living conditions and the experience of migra
tion – as well as, to some extent the different cultural backgrounds of the
settlers – were bound to affect the directions of social and cultural develop
ment in several significant ways. The second, most decisive but also most
difficult to grasp and most irresistibly conducive to speculation, was the
tenthcentury turn to state formation on a geopolitical, social and cultural
basis that set the beginnings as well as the long-term dynamics apart from
comparable processes in Scandinavia. The third was the conversion to
Christianity; in one sense this is the most visible landmark, but there is
still room for a good deal of controversy on the meaning of the siðaskipti, as
well as on the distinction between conversion date and conversion period
(proposed by Peter foote 2004). the fourth shift is more difficult to date,
but it was clearly under way in the late twelfth century: a new twist to state
formation, in much less regulated and more internecine ways than before,
led to the emergence of a few family and territory-based blocs, whose
rivalry destroyed the framework of the Freestate. Sigurður Nordal refers
to this phase as a “revolutionary time” (Sigurður nordal 1942, 351, repr.
1993 I, 412). The final episode was the incorporation into an ascendant and
expanding Norwegian kingdom; this was a rapid transition, but it is best
understood as a process that includes events before and after 1262–1264.
All these discontinuities have been emphasized in recent scholarship on
medieval Iceland. they are doubly important for our present concerns. on
the one hand, questions about civilizational commonalities and differences
between Iceland and the rest of the Nordic world must be posed with due
regard to the historical context of ruptures and reorientations. to antici
pate a point that will only be adumbrated in this paper, the above picture of
Icelandic history casts doubt on the idea of a Scandinavian civilization sur
viving for some four centuries after the settlement. Rather, the Icelandic
experience appears as a very distinctive episode within Western Chris-
tendom, turning a peripheral location to political as well as cultural advan
tage and combining the resources borrowed from more developed civiliza
tional centres with elements of pre-Christian traditions. It is, in other
words, better understood as a highly specific and background-dependent
variant of the civilization then entering its flourishing phase in Western
Europe, rather than the last stand of another civilization on the wane. On
the other hand, the representative – and that means, to all intents and pur