Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 97

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references to events described in sagas, and not just to those events con­
temporary with Sturlunga. He notes patterns of alliance­building found in
tales of the söguöld, and he mentions numerous sagas in which law serves
as a strategic tool for gaming the prevailing authority structure. By accept­
ing the sagas as supplementary evidence for historical generalizations, jón
seeks some greater leverage for Icelandic historical studies. His approach is
compatible with recent European historiography, which has accepted more
porous boundaries between historical “fact” and narrative “fiction” (Iggers
1997, 144). But important questions remain about exactly how to unlock
the cultural meaning that is presumed to reside within the sagas. Although
Jón subscribes to a relatively dynamic view of history and politics, para­
doxically, when it comes to sagas he assigns them a monolithic cultural
outlook or world view. Despite his eagerness to explore the fluidity of
political development, jón treats the broader culture as frozen into a con­
stant value system. He seems to need that normative stability (or “high
degree of continuity”) in cultural values as a guarantee of fixed reference
for the whole field of saga evidence—as a condition for bringing saga
examples into his historical work (1999, 28).
At this point the civilizational theorist will push the dynamic impulse
still farther. Why should we accept the postulate of a single, unified value
system standing behind the society portrayed in the sagas? It seems more
likely that cultural values themselves evolved over the period of four centu­
ries, and may thus have been riven with internal tensions. In the same way
that Gunnar allows a second formal model into his political scheme, Jón
suggests that the Icelandic commonwealth may have held two successive
coherent value schemes, identified respectively with the söguöld and with
the final century of the samtíðarsögur (1999, 31). With this approach, jón
follows standard historical conventions, hoping to explain the evolution of
political forms in terms of an implied normative consensus in the broader
culture (and hence reflected in saga writing). But the civilizational perspec­
tive asks whether it is in fact necessary to assume that value structures
meet this requirement of coherence and stability. values may rather be
dynamic and fluid—perhaps even the central engine for evolution within a
particular culture. Is it possible to integrate saga evidence into historical
studies without falling back on this static model of culture? If cultural
meaning is integral to the expansion of institutional structures (jóhann Páll
CReAtInG At tHe MARGInS