Gripla - 20.12.2009, Side 68

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testimony about the circumstances around cases of homicide, recorded by
local officials and sent to the king: the exact description of details, the
paratactic style and the frequent use of direct speech, often with striking
formulations, invite direct comparison.44 As these letters primarily contain
the testimony of witnesses, often apparently directly quoted, they are
likely to stand relatively close to oral discourse.
Although, as we have seen, the egalitarian character of medieval
Icelandic society should not be exaggerated, it was certainly more pro­
nounced than in most other places at the same time. As Icelandic society
was without a clear hierarchy, status depended more on personal qualities
than on inherited or bureaucratic positions, with intense competition and
with a great risk for the loser to be the subject of ridicule. It was also a
society where a man’s success depended more on his ability to form alli­
ances, persuade people to join him and to outmanoeuvre his opponents
than on courage and skills at arms. Above all, the saga literature differs
from contemporary european historiography in the less exclusively aristo­
cratic character of the players which made the chieftains more dependent
on broader support and increased the importance of the personal qualities
of the players, in the form of intelligence, eloquence, generosity and the
ability to handle various kinds of people. Heimskringla consistently points
out that the farmers are helpless without their leaders and generally
attributes most important decisions to the latter. the farmers are thus in a
subordinate position, but they are always there, in contrast to what is
found in european historiography.45 the importance of oratory in the
sagas serves to illustrate this point. the frequent references to regal elo­
quence in the characterisations of kings, as well as the many speeches
attributed to them, notably in Sverris saga and Heimskringla, show the
importance of persuading people to do what the leader wants.46
Might some of the features of the saga literature also be explained by
44 trygve knudsen, Skrift, tradisjon og litteraturmål (oslo: universitetsforlaget, 1967), 81–83;
cf. olav Solberg, Forteljingar om drap: kriminalhistorier frå seinmellomalderen (Bergen:
fagbokforlaget, 2003), 40–64 etc.
45 Bagge, Society and Politics, 138 f.
46 Ibid., 149, and Sverre Bagge, “oratory and Politics in the Sagas,” L’Histoire et les nouveaux
publics dans l’europe médiévale (XIIIe–Xve siècles), Actes du colloque international org­
anisé par la fondation européenne de la Science à la Casa de vélasquez, Madrid, 23–24
Avril 1993, ed. jean­Philippe Genet, Publications de la Sorbonne, Paris 1997, 215–28.