Miller, William Ian. The Bonds of Kinship

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  • Author: Miller, William Ian
  • Title: The Bonds of Kinship
  • Published in: Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law and Society in Saga Iceland
  • Place, Publisher:  Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • Year: 1990
  • Pages: 139-78
  • E-text:
  • Reference: Miller, William Ian. Bloodtaking and Peacemaking: Feud, Law, and Society in Saga Iceland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

  • Key words:



Annotation

In this chapter, Miller discusses kinship in both theory and practice within the Icelandic sagas. He focuses on the necessity of kin to support the social practices and system of the medieval Icelandic world—even going so far as to say it was what made the Icelandic world go round. The chapter gives an in-depth look into multiple aspects of kinship, which may be explored further in the references. The most important conclusions he comes to are the following: the fact that kinship was not actually limited to blood or marriage, and instances of friends acting as kin for each other was common; such as Njáll and Gunnar. Kinship was also the core of group formation in an otherwise unstructured society. Furthermore, kinship was not something that existed without effort—in order to maintain the strongest bonds with your kin, gift giving, feasting, and other efforts must be made to continue your relationship. While it was not always a stable system—for example, Miller dedicates time to discussing kin-strife in the chapter—on the whole, kinship helped structure Icelandic society by promoting group formation and avenging one another within the feud culture.

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See also

References

Chapter 35: „ fyrir vináttu sakir: “Keeping good kinship did not come naturally. It required work and foresight to maintain the bonds in working order. This task was aided by norms of mutual aid and reciprocity.” (p. 164)

Links

  • Written by: Meg Morrow
  • Icelandic/English translation: