VIKING JUSTICE
While known as bloodthirsty pirates abroad, the Vikings were governed by strict laws at home
One vivid image of Viking raiders has endured over the centuries: rampant, bloodthirsty warriors emerging from their terrifying longships to ravage villages and towns, terrorising, killing without mercy and ransacking holy places of their precious and treasured possessions. To their terrified victims they were unruly savages, seemingly governed only by their thirst for battle and desire for gold and land.
Yet behind the wild and uncontrollable image there lies a different story: men and women from an ordered society that had structure and a deeply rooted desire for fairness and justice. Punishments could be severely disproportionate to the crime — just calling someone a coward could see you have to fight them to the death — but the Viking legal system was based on a legislative assembly where all free men had a say and trials were carried out with a jury of your peers.
We use the term Vikings broadly, but its wrong to think of these people as a single group from a single place. In the Viking Age, as now, Scandinavia was a complex collection of countries, each with their own slightly different variation of a deeper shared culture and belief system, as well as their own ambitions and plans. Even these individual nations contained multitudes: beset by clan feuds, political factions in the warrior class and bitter disputes between individuals.
The need for laws and a system that was acceptable and workable for all was essential. In a society made up of farmers and warriors, often spread over vast distances, there was a dire need for something to draw these disparate people together, to maintain discipline among themselves and unity against others.
What evolved through the Viking Age was the Thing — a public gathering that would provide the opportunity for all people to express their views and settle disputes. New laws were made at the Allthing, an annual event where the opinions of the entire population could be heard on topics such as taxes, deciding and confirming who was king, and even peace treaties. The Allthing would also be a chance to trade between distant, scattered settlements and host religious festivals.
While the most important disputes might be discussed at the Allthing, crimes were normally tried at the local and regional level at a Law-thing, which were smaller but more met more frequently. These would cover topics such as property disputes and marital affairs, but perhaps also those that needed to be dealt with sooner, such as a murder investigation.
In most communities, a Thing would be presided over by a chieftain or even a king. However, this was not always the case. In Iceland there was no single figurehead at the centre of the rule of law and the people would elect a leader — admittedly, they still usually came from one of the wealthiest families on the island.
But it was the contribution made by the free men, known as karls, that made the Viking assemblies so much more democratic and set the standard for the system of law we recognise today. Viking society had a simple structure, with the majority of wealth and power in the hands of nobles, the jarls. Below them were the karls and then at the very bottom were the thralls, slaves who were usually foreigners captured on raids.
Each year at the Thing, the free men found their voice. We say men because, although attendance was every free man’s duty, it was optional for women. While it is argued that this was for the practical reason that someone still needed to watch the homestead, it came with the assumption that men should handle public affairs and domestic life was better suited to women. Women were effectively relegated but this made the Vikings no worse than that other cradle of democracy, Ancient Greece.
Sitting on a panel — or a jury, as we would now call it — the mostly male karls would listen to both sides of any dispute, with testimony from the injured party, the accused and relevant witnesses. While the free men would often be swayed and influenced by the chieftain (who often had their own agenda), they would also be advised and guided by the law-sayer.
In a culture that had little to no writing other than runic symbols, the laws created, decisions
“The lawsayer would be elected by the Allthing”
made and sentences passed at each Thing would be committed to memory by this remarkable individual. The law-sayer would then guide the jury, reciting the relevant laws and pointing out legal precedents from previous disputes. However, they were not lawyers — the law-sayer was supposed to be objective and it was instead up to the relevant parties to prosecute and defend themselves. The law-sayer would be elected by the Allthing legislature and serve a three-year term.
Just as we swear oaths today, there are records of witnesses doing just that on a bloodied ring and so in the eyes of the community and the gods they were bound by honour. There is some 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 innocent because the gods had smiled on them.
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 to carry it out — this was down to the family of the injured party and it could take several different forms. On one level there was civilised discussion and an agreement made between the two parties, sometimes using an accepted third person as an arbitrator and often ending in a fine. But the 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. Those partially outlawed for three years had their home and possessions to return to, but to be fully outlawed, cast out, dishonoured and lose all worldly wealth was difficult to endure.
Added to this, tracking down and killing an outlaw wasn’t a crime and so many would flee to other lands to escape such a fate. It was better than falling prey to ambitious individuals who sought to improve their status and standing in the community by carrying out their own death sentences in this way.
Another way of distributing justice was in hand-to-hand combat — a holmgang, or duel — but there was no guarantee of justice being on the side of the right. In simple Viking terms, the gods favoured the righteous and so the outcome was seen as justice being carried out. In reality, the result rested purely on the skills of those taking part and it could be a very uneven match. But it was possible for one of the parties to appoint a substitute or champion in their place and thereby possibly swing the fight in their favour. Either way, in the eyes of the gods it was always the winner who was in the right and the means justified the end.
However, Viking notions of which crimes deserved a fine and those that required capital punishments were very different from ours today. Taking responsibility for one’s own actions was considered paramount. If you did something wrong, you had to admit to it and then you could defend yourself at the Thing, which was the honourable way to handle it.
You could even get away with murder — if you did it in broad daylight and not flee the scene, 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.
“The ultimate price to pay for a Viking was to be outlawed from society”
The Norwegians settled in Scotland, Ireland and Iceland; the Swedes in Russia, the Baltic, and Eastern Europe; the Danes in England and France.
With the flourishing of Viking settlements came the spread of their laws. Archaeological evidence for Things have been found in the Isle of Man, the Faroe Islands, Scotland and beyond. In many of these places, honorary Things still assemble.
In England, meanwhile, the Danelaw represented a geographical area negotiated through various battles and treaties but it was the foundation of many aspects of modern law that we know today. Far from being oppressed and enslaved, the parts of England under Viking rule continued to thrive and there’s no evidence that the Danelaw was any more lawless than neighbouring Wessex. In fact, Viking justice has left a legacy that endures to this day — the English word ‘law’ derives directly from Old Norse.
As a system of law and order, the Thing had its faults, such as being open to corruption and overly reliant on an unswerving belief in the will of the gods. But it was inclusive, giving the ordinary man a voice and placing the strong Viking values of honour and fairness at its core. It was this strength that was to carry it through many years of change, ensuring that smash-and-grab raiders could spread their influence throughout entire countries and on through the centuries to the enduring legacy that we have today.