Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2005, Page 15

The Westfjords
Westfjords well into the sixteenth cen-
tury.
There are no sagas about these
people. However, we know quite a lot
about them through documents that have
been preserved, especially surrounding
the complicated legal wrangling that
went on for centuries between the church
and the descendants of Eiríkur over the
property rights over VatnsJjörður.7
It is not out of proportion to
speak of an aristocracy in the Westfjords
and this aristocracy seems to live on at
least until the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury. Of course this aristocracy was relat-
ed to other members of the dominant
class. In addition, it is diffícult to see a
clear continuity in the lineages, which
seem at least to have been enriched by
new blood in the sixteenth century.8 The
major reason for the persistence of this
aristocracy in what is today an out of the
way part of the country must be the par-
ticular economic conditions of this long
period that made this region, more than
any other in Iceland, a place where peo-
ple could accumulate riches.
Indeed, from the fourteenth cen-
tury onwards, the Westijords area was
where the wealthy men of the period
lived. Why is this? The obvious answer is
físhing. From the late thirteenth century
onwards, físhing seems to gain impor-
tance in the Icelandic economy.9 The
dominant thinking is that not only were
the local magnates in an advantageous
position to reap profíts from all the fish-
ing that went on in the Westijords, but
that they were also involved in foreign
trade, especially with England, in the
fourteenth and fífteenth centuries.10 This
would be the explanation of what seems
to have been an exceptional accumula-
tion of wealth. However, this view has
recently been challenged by a scholar
who believes that the Westijord's wealth
in the late Middle Ages might just as well
be explained by extensive domestic,
rather than foreign, trade with fish prod-
ucts.* 11 It is likely that further research will
help solve this problem, especially
archaeological research.
Indeed, three of the articles in
this volume contribute to an increased
understanding of these issues. Among
these, an overview article on físhing and
the economy of the Westijords by Ragnar
Edvardsson argues that fishing was
always a primary activity in the region
and brings archaeological evidence to
bear on this. The data which has already
been collected also suggests that there
were transformations over the years and
seems to fít the idea that fishing as an
organized activity for exportation
became an important part of the economy
of the area in the fourteenth and fifteenth
century. Edvardsson's evidence suggests
that in that period seasonal fishing settle-
ments were more often close to grounds
where it was likelier to catch the larger
variety of cod, marketable as stockfish in
7 On this see Amór Sigurjónsson, Vestfirðinga saga 1390-1540, Leiftur, Reykjavík 1975.
8 Þómnn Sigurðardóttir, "Vestfirskur ‘aðall’. Mótun sjálfsmyndar í bókmenntum", Ársrit Sögufélags Isfirðinga 43 (2003), p.
201-214.
9 For an overview of this see Helgi Þorláksson, Vaðmál og verðlag. Vaðmál í utanlandsviðskiptum og búskap Islendinga á
13. og 14. öld, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Iceland, Reykjavík 1991, p. 440-477.
10 This is Amór Sigurjónsson's thesis. See his Vestfirðinga saga p. 77.
11 Helgi Þorláksson, "Fiskur og höfðingjar á Vestfjörðum", Arsrit Sögufélags Isfirðinga 43 (2003), p. 67-82.
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