Page 33 - All About History - Issue 59-17

However, these ordeals could be much tougher
with trials like walking across hot coals, carrying
heated rocks or plunging hands into boiling water
to pick out a hot iron. If there burns didn’t become
infected within three days, they were innocent.
Besides perjury, the Thing had to contend with
jury tampering. Powerful clans might bribe or
threaten violence against free men to sway their
votes. Sometimes it was even more insidious: free
men might be more favourable to clans they owed
some allegiance to or they could be prejudiced
against sworn enemies.
Not unlike modern trial, the dispute was
concluded when the jury unanimously voted on
the best way to resolve it. The chieftain would
then consider this when making a judgement.
However, a crucial difference is that even though
the Thing would decide upon a dispute and pass a
sentence, it was not the assembly’s responsibility The 1,000th anniversary
to carry it out — this was down to the family of the of the Allthing celebrated
injured party and it could take several different in Iceland, June 1930
forms. On one level there was civilised discussion
and an agreement made between the two parties, “The ultimate price to
sometimes using an accepted third person as
an arbitrator and often ending in a fine. But the pay for a Viking was to be
nature of the crime sometimes called for much
more drastic and severe punishments.
The ultimate price to pay for a Viking was to be outlawed from society”
outlawed from society. Those partially outlawed
for three years had their home and possessions Another way of distributing justice was in Either way, in the eyes of the gods it was always
to return to, but to be fully outlawed, cast out, hand-to-hand combat — a holmgang, or duel — but the winner who was in the right and the means 33
dishonoured and lose all worldly wealth was there was no guarantee of justice being on the justified the end.
difficult to endure. side of the right. In simple Viking terms, the gods However, Viking notions of which crimes
Added to this, tracking down and killing an favoured the righteous and so the outcome was deserved a fine and those that required capital
outlaw wasn’t a crime and so many would flee seen as justice being carried out. In reality, the punishments were very different from ours today.
to other lands to escape such a fate. It was better result rested purely on the skills of those taking Taking responsibility for one’s own actions was
than falling prey to ambitious individuals who part and it could be a very uneven match. But considered paramount. If you did something
sought to improve their status and standing in it was possible for one of the parties to appoint wrong, you had to admit to it and then you could
the community by carrying out their own death a substitute or champion in their place and defend yourself at the Thing, which was the
sentences in this way. thereby possibly swing the fight in their favour. honourable way to handle it.
You could even get away with murder — if you
A romanticised vision of did it in broad daylight and not flee the scene,
holmgang duelists you would get a lighter sentence. Erik the Red
killed two men in around 982 in Drangar, Iceland.
He did not run and was exiled for three years.
This worked out in his favour as he discovered
Greenland while he was gone.
In contrast, theft was a heinous crime because
stealing involves hiding one’s action. Grettir
the Strong was almost hung for stealing two
sheep when he was a starving outlaw in the 11th
century. This form of execution was very rare and
considered particularly shameful. Slander could
also carry a death sentence. Viking law dictated
that to use insults that suggested another was
unmanly or effeminate — for example, calling
someone cowardly — gave a warrior the legal right
to challenge their accuser to a duel.
Viking law clearly did not see piracy against
foreigners as crime, but then again neither did
Elizabethan England hundreds of years later.
Nonetheless, Viking raiding eventually gave way
to settlements across early Medieval Europe.