Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 37
37A MutAtInG PeRIPHeRy
some detail; it is a largely and explicitly conjectural account, but to my
mind a very plausible one. The story begins with a strong emphasis on the
ambitious, deliberate and artificial character of the project that was imple
mented in the first half of the tenth century (Ibid., 102–108). A common
state, however minimal in terms of central authority and coercive machin
ery, was neither necessitated by external threats nor imposed by internal
problems. The settlement was not a collective enterprise; the living condi
tions of a small community scattered throughout a large island were not
conducive to massive conflicts, and there is no obvious reason why the set
tlers could not have muddled through without a constitutional order – per
haps with local assemblies on a smaller scale – for a much longer time. In
Weberian terms, the creation of this order was a rationalizing break
through; toynbee’s model of challenge and response is applicable, but it
must be added that the response took shape through inventive interpreta
tion of traditions and circumstances. There was, however, another side to
the state-building project. Nordal discusses it twice (Ibid., 107 and 123–
124), briefly in both cases but with a clear focus on the essentials. Political
innovation must, as he sees it, have been backed up by religious authority.
To him it seems clear that laws were given a sacral status through a connec
tion to pagan religion (in a broad, quasiDurkheimian sense), probable that
various kinds of belief (“ýmiss konar átrúnaður”) entered into the details of
lawmaking, and possible that the institutional terms goði and goðorð had an
old religious content. This was not a sufficient basis for a hierocracy (this
Weberian term seems the most adequate translation of nordal’s presta
veldi), and what we know about paganism in Iceland indicates that it was
too unstructured (or destructured) to sustain a model of divine legislation.
on the other hand, nordal suggests (this is the most conjectural part of the
argument) that beliefs relating to landvœttir and other numinous beings
(goðmögn) may have motivated efforts to consolidate the relationship to a
new country, and that a certain reordering of religious life may therefore
have accompanied the foundation of a political order.
This description of a constitutive but flexible relationship between
religion and politics is obviously to the taste of civilizational analysts. It
may be useful to underline the point through a brief comparative excursus.
Recent debates on the origins of the Greek polis seem to have highlighted
two themes. On the one hand, even the early poleis were “cities of reason”