From Subsistence Economy to Political Order

• Main Author: Zori, Davide
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York 2024
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190916060.003.0003; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/58023941/oso-9780190916060-chapter-3.pdf

Abstract This chapter shows explores the connection between Viking economics and the formation of political groups by looking closely at the practice of Viking feasting. The image of the hard-drinking convivial Viking raising his horn at a raucous feast has become a cliché in popular culture. As this chapter shows, however, there is substantial historical truth to the image. But Viking Age feasts were not at all simple. This chapter argues that feasting was the main way that surplus food production could be used to make statements of political power. The ideal Viking feast is first sought in the Old Norse poems and myths. A close examination of these texts will show a preoccupation with the essential products of the feast—alcohol and meat—and stress the importance of the socially constructed arena of feasting within the feasting hall. Looking closely at the sagas, the chapter unravels the dynamics of feasting first among kings in Scandinavia and then among chieftains and farmers in Iceland. Archaeological evidence of feasting is then explored by specifically focusing on traces of feasting found inscribed on stones, left in graves, and preserved in halls. Finally, by combining our datasets, the chapter examines the challenges and potentials of maintaining Scandinavian feasting customs on the margins of the Viking world, in Iceland, and takes up a case study that shows the importance of a chieftain family’s feasting potential for their changing political fortunes.