Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 125
123S L Í M U S E T U R IN EARLY ICELANDIC LAW
well as other forms of taxation. Thus, following King Ólafr Tryggvason’s
death at Svöldur in 1000, both Earl Eiríkr and magnate Erlingr Skjálgsson
believed themselves to be rightful overlords of Rogaland, and each pro-
ceeded to demand veizlur and other payments in full from the local farmers,
who had no choice but to pay double.25 We may doubt the historicity of the
narrative, but the political culture it describes is typically premodern.
The kings’ sagas focus principally on the king and his mobilization of
resources rather than that of other major players, who appear more ran-
domly in the narratives. There can be no doubt, however, that before royal
authority increased and became consolidated in the thirteenth century,
the aristocratic practice of articulating political and social status through
demands of formal upkeep and reception from inferiors must have been
common among the politically strong, as it indeed was in premodern
Europe. Before asking if the same was true for commonwealth Iceland,
two things regarding the king’s own practice of exacting feasts should be
underlined. Firstly, that Norway’s framework of itinerant kingship de-
veloped over a long period of time, and its limits were expressed through
custom.26 Therefore, the practice of enforced hospitality, whether by the
king or anyone else believing he was entitled to it, becomes visible to us
almost exclusively through medieval narratives, not law. For Western
Europe generally, the subject became a matter of law only when kings
started to legislate against this practice by others, forbidding them to sli-
mesit (or, prior to this, when they issued privileges for specific cities and
towns in the form of charters). Political superiors would be accompanied
by a retinue, lið or hirð, when they paid formal visits, and the law of the
Norwegian court, Hirðskrá, gives valuable insight into the composition of
the royal retinue. Hirðskrá is a late legal document, however, dating from
the second half of the thirteenth century, and thus it postdates the forma-
tive period of itinerant kingship. To what extent it reflects earlier law of
the court (and if it does, how far back) is a matter of debate.27
25 Heimskringla, 2: 28‒29, cf. Saga Óláfs konungs hins helga: Den store saga om Olav den hellige
efter pergamenthåndskrift i Kungliga biblioteket i Stockholm nr. 2 4to med varianter fra andre
håndskrifter, ed. Oscar Albert Johansen and Jón Helgason, 2 bks. (Oslo: Norsk historisk
kjeldeskrift-institutt, 1941), 59‒60, and Flateyjarbók, 1: 537.
26 Expressed in the sagas with (forn) lǫg, vanði or venja, siðvenja, siðr, and the like; see, e.g.,
Heimskringla, 2: 49 (siðvenja), 100 (siðr), 102 (lǫg), 191 (siðvenja), 297 (lǫg, vanði), cf. Saga
Óláfs konungs hins helga, 81, 146, 148 and Flateyjarbók, 2: 64; Heimskringla, 3: 207 (forn lǫg).
27 See the introduction to Hirdskråen: Hirdloven til Norges konge og hans håndgangne menn etter