Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 133

131S L Í M U S E T U R IN EARLY ICELANDIC LAW
The strongest chieftains in Sturlunga and the ones we get closest to in
the narrative, such as Snorri Sturluson and his brothers, are not shown im-
posing themselves on their political inferiors and demanding to be formally
received by them in veizlur, neither routinely nor sporadically. The saga
never hints that they desired to do so. It is beyond the scope of this article
to treat the case of Þorgils skarði, a king’s man who resorted to violence
and threats when his claims for recognition of authority were refuted by
local farmers. Some he forced into acceptance through hospitality (veizlur),
having either threatened them with violence or simply beaten them up.
However, the context of his actions was specific and quite different from
that of slímusetur.44
European Echoes―Concluding Remarks
The introduction to Icelandic law of a prohibition against slímusetur, in
Járnsíða and Jónsbók, was not a response to local political conditions.
Mainly, it was symptomatic of the fact that Iceland had now joined a new
and different political unity, the Norwegian realm. In Norway, its intro-
duction corresponded better to local conditions. Ultimately, however,
the legal measures taken against forced hospitality in Scandinavia were
echoes of a European development in which kings and princes increasingly
policed their territories as legislators, supreme judges, and protectors of
public peace and order.45
Also in the larger context, it is worth noting that the practice of en-
forced hospitality, the obligatory reception of a political superior, did
not lose its importance within medieval political discourse through these
developments (state formation). On the contrary, it underscored the pri-
macy of kings and princes as it was denied to others. In other words,
kings increasingly redefined such behavior by others as illegal violence,
slimestitting, and breach of public peace, while reserving for themselves
World: Essays in Honour of Margaret Clunies Ross, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern
Europe, vol. 18 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007).
44 Þorgils skarði’s actions are studied, with relevant examples, in Viðar Pálsson, Language of
Power, 163‒65, 175‒81.
45 Around the same time, stipulations entered Scandinavian law that forbade travelers, pow-
erful and not, from demanding lodging without payment, for which there was often cited
customary hospitality of some sort. Evidently, that had become too burdensome. This is a
related yet a separate issue. See Jerker Rosén, “Våldgästning,” in KLNM, 20: 280‒81.