Gripla - 20.12.2009, Side 53

53
egalitarianism
A more promising idea seems to be that of Scandinavian egalitarianism:
here, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are the candidates, whereas Denmark
seems to conform more to the normal European pattern with a strong
aristocracy dominating the peasantry. nevertheless, the current trend is to
emphasise the aristocratic character of nordic society.7 the “farmers”
(bœndr) who play such an important role in the sagas are not the average
members of the political community but aristocrats and leaders of local
society. Most of the land in all of the nordic countries (except Iceland)
was owned by great lords or ecclesiastical institutions to whom the farmers
paid rent, although they mostly had their own personal freedom. Relatively
speaking, however, most of the Nordic countries differed from most of
Western europe in the egalitarian direction. the social and economic dif­
ferences seem to have been less pronounced, although they were increasing
during the Middle Ages, and the common people had to be taken into
account to a greater extent than in many other countries. the importance
of the farmers was reduced from the 12th and 13th century onwards with
the development of a royal and ecclesiastical bureaucracy, for instance in
Norway with the introduction of permanent royal judges and local offi­
cials, and in Iceland after the country submitted to the King of Norway in
1262–64, but the farmers were represented in the Swedish diet that devel­
oped during the Later Middle Ages. Moreover, the Swedish farmers play-
ed an important military role during the struggles against the Danish king
in the 15th and early 16th century. In this respect, Sweden is not unique but
conforms to other countries on the periphery, such as Scotland, Switzerland,
and parts of Germany and east Central europe. furthermore, the farmers
continued to play an important part in local government in Norway and
Iceland, to some extent also in Denmark, at least until the 17th century.
Here, it may be objected that historians have a natural tendency to
imagine the past in the light of the present and Scandinavian historians –
particularly Norwegian ones – may well be suspected of making the
Middle Ages too egalitarian and “Social Democratic”. Medieval society in
Scandinavia was very hierarchical and aristocratic but probably less so than
7 eljas orrman, „Rural Conditions,“ The Cambridge History of Scandinavia I, ed. knut Helle,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 299–306 w. ref.
noRDIC unIQueneSS In tHe MIDDLe AGeS?