Page 31 - All About History - Issue 59-17

Viking Justice

Vicious Viking Punishments

Paying a fine Trial by Fire
Everything has a price Prove your innocence

To the Vikings, everything and everyone had a price. When In later years, after being converted to Christianity,
setting a fine for the guilty, a number of things would Vikings could face trial by fire. This could take the form
be taken into consideration such as the status of the of walking across hot coals, carrying heated rocks or
individual and their ability to pay. They would also ensure plunging hands into boiling water to pick out a hot iron.
that the amount was proportionate to the injustice done Should the wounds be clean and without infection after
to the injured party. Quite often any fine would be split three days, it was taken as a sign that the gods had
between the injured party, the local community and the intervened and the accused was then immediately
chieftain or king, but was open to corruption. proven innocent.

The Jónsbok Icelandic
law code was written by
a law-sayer called
Jón Einarsson c.1280

made and sentences passed at each Thing would
be committed to memory by this remarkable 31
individual. The law-sayer would then guide the
jury, reciting the relevant laws and pointing
out legal precedents from previous disputes. Mutilation Slavery
However, they were not lawyers — the law-sayer A warning to others Paying with your life
was supposed to be objective and it was instead
up to the relevant parties to prosecute and defend Viking slaves had no rights but Icelandic law did make While some thralls were foreigners captured in raids,
themselves. The law-sayer would be elected by the provisions for how to punish offending thralls in the most others were Vikings who had committed a serious crime
Allthing legislature and serve a three-year term. harrowing way possible. The Grey Goose Laws stipulated or had debts they could not pay. Slaves had no rights, had
Just as we swear oaths today, there are records that if a slave killed their master and tried to run away, to obey their masters at all times and were often harshly
of witnesses doing just that on a bloodied ring they should have their arms and legs cut off but be treated. In fact, the punishment of being downgraded to a
and so in the eyes of the community and the allowed to live as long as they could as a warning to thrall also came with an implicit threat: it was not a crime
gods they were bound by honour. There is some other slaves not to rebel. for a Viking to kill their own slave.
speculation this was in some way connected to
Ullr, the god of archery who skiied across the
heavens and, like the god Tyr, represented fairness
and justice. A shrine to Ullr has been uncovered
along with 65 rings upon which it is thought vows
were made before they were buried.
Oath-breaking was serious in the Viking Age
and those accused of perjury were sentenced to a
trial of ordeal. For example, one witness charged
with lying had to build an archway. If they could
pass beneath it without it collapsing, they were Banishment Death
innocent because the gods had smiled on them. Exiled into the wilderness Pay the ultimate price
“The law- To be dishonest or dishonourable was a grave crime Crimes like premeditated murder were almost always

sayer would If the accused was sentenced to be put outside the law, common form of execution, a particularly gruesome way
punished by death. While beheading was the most
among the Vikings and it was punished severely.
be elected by sentence. But there were two levels of outlaw — a semi- to go was called the ‘blood eagle’. The victim’s ribs and
or outlawed, it would be almost as serious as a death
lungs were pulled out of their back to create a pair of
the Allthing” outlaw would be banished for a period of three years but wings that ‘fluttered’ bird-like as they died. There are only
two recorded victims of this death and they were both
still keep his property and possessions to return to,
while a full outlaw would lose everything.
charged with killing Danish king Ivarr the Boneless’ father.