Interdisciplinary journal focusing primarily on sociological, political science and historical perspectives on the issue of long-term social processes and trends, modernization, globalization tendency and impacts.
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Published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press, cooperated with Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague.
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HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE, Vol 15 No 2 (2023), 27–41
Konec řádu na kraji světa. K historické sociologii islandských ság
[The End of Order at the Edge of the World. On the Historical Sociology of the Icelandic Sagas]
Jóhann Páll Árnason
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363525.2023.20
published online: 08. 11. 2023
abstract
This article discusses the historical background to the medieval Icelandic sagas. It draws on the work of Icelandic historians, especially Gunnar Karlsson, to argue that the key factor was a distinctive political order established in Iceland before the conversion to Christianity. This was not a peasant democracy, as some idealizing interpretations have suggested; it was an oligarchy sui generis, with power (and a remnant of religious authority) vested in an elite of chieftains. However, there was no executive centre. This decentralized regime left its mark on the Christianizing process; the Icelanders accepted Christianity without monarchy, and for a long time without a fully empowered Church. Together with a pronounced cultural focus on narrativity, this political context explains the rise of a vernacular literature that was in many ways influenced by Christian sources, but retained a connection to pre-Christian traditions.
keywords: Medieval Iceland; sagas; chieftains; conversion; thirteenth-century crisis; monarchy
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Konec řádu na kraji světa. K historické sociologii islandských ság is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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ISSN: 1804-0616
E-ISSN: 2336-3525
