Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 124

122 GRIPLA
Local Icelandic Context
Late-commonwealth Icelanders knew this language of power well.
Obligatory hospitality lay at the heart of itinerant kingship in Norway,
as elsewhere, and Icelandic authors describe its social, political, and
economic mechanisms at length in the kings’ sagas, dating from the early
thirteenth century. In the world of the kings’ sagas, well prior to royal
legislation against enforced hospitality (by others), the king is but one
among those who exact hospitality as an exercise of authority. Petty kings
routinely sought to establish their local authority by formal reception,
veizla, and often met with great resistance. The sagas’ description of how
the Eiríkssynir sought establishment in Norway after their stay in England
is emblematic, for example. The last of them, Guðrøðr, arrived in Víkin,
“tók hann at herja ok brjóta undir sik landsfólk, en beiddi sér viðtǫku”
(proceeded to harry and subjugate the people, and demanded acclamation
for himself). The farmers chose to host him at feasts (veizlur) rather than
paying for his and his army’s upkeep with an outright payment. They got
rid of him soon, however, when two of King Óláfr Tryggvason’s kinsmen
“koma á einni nótt með liði sínu þar, sem Guðrøðr konungr var á veizlu,
veita þar atgǫngu með eldi ok vápnum. Fell þar Guðrøðr konungr ok
flestallt liðit hans” (arrived one night together with their force where King
Guðrøðr was attending a veizla, and attacked with fire and weapons. King
Guðrøðr fell there and almost all of his men).23 His brother, King Erlingr,
had suffered the same fate in Þrándheimr when the farmers themselves
recruited “lið mikit, stefna síðan at Erlingi konungi, þar sem hann var á
veizlu, ok halda við hann orrustu. Fell Erlingr konungr þar ok mikil sveit
manna með honum” (a great force, then headed for where King Erlingr
was attending a veizla and confronted him in battle. King Erlingr fell there
and a mighty host of men with him).24 Involuntary hospitality became
especially burdensome for the local farmers when rival claimants for aut-
hority surveyed the same region simultaneously, demanding veizlur as
23 Heimskringla, ed. Bjarni Aðalbjarnarson, 3 vols., Íslenzk fornrit, vols. 26‒28 (Reykjavík:
Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 1941‒51), 1: 334‒35, cf. Flateyjarbók: En samling of norske konge-
sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler, ed.
Guðbrandur Vigfússon and C. R. Unger, 3 vols. (Christiania: P. T. Mallings forlagsboghan-
del, 1860−68), 1: 432‒33, and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar eptir Odd munk Snorrason, ed. Ólafur
Halldórsson, Íslenzk fornrit, vol. 25 (Reykjavík: Hið íslenzka fornritafélag, 2006), 286‒88.
24 Heimskringla, 1: 220‒21.