Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2012
Department 1
English
Abstract
Gwyn Jones famously posited the notion of a cogent Norse identity as manifested by common language, culture, and mythology; further, as he clarified in his landmark work A History of the Vikings, law and the practice of law in local and national assemblies was a fundamental component of such a unifying cultural characteristic: "…for the Scandinavian peoples in general, their respect for law, their insistence upon its public and democratic exercise at the Thing, and its validity for all free men, together with their evolution of a primitive and exportable jury system, is one of the distinctive features of their culture throughout the Viking Age…." [excerpt]
Copyright Note
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.
DOI
10.1057/9781137062390
Recommended Citation
Fee, Christopher R. "Með lögum skal land vort byggja: ‘With Law Shall the Land be Built.’ Law-Speaking and Identity in the Medieval Norse Atlantic." Studies in the Medieval Atlantic (The New Middle Ages Series) ed. B. Hudson (London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2012), 123-141.
Required Publisher's Statement
Original version is available from the publisher, Palgrave MacMillan.
Included in
Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons