Sacred Legal Places in Eddic Poetry: Reflected in Real Life?

Riisøy, A.I.

doi:10.3721/037.002.sp509

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…The descriptions of the ceremony called "taking king" at Mora Äng in the medieval sources should not be regarded as a 14 th -century invention, as some scholars have 30 On the connection between myths, cosmology, and þing places in ancient Scandinavia, see Riisøy 2013. assumed, as the sources outlining it seem to include ancient layers. There are a number of indications that strengthen such an argument, including the archaeological finds discovered in the environment of Mora Äng, the location of the þing place on the border between the two old folkland-units, and Snorri's story about the execution of kings at the kelda of Múlaþing (*á Moraþingi) in older times.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ceremony of “King Taking” at the Swedish Mora Stone

Sundqvist¹

2022

RvT

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There are no sources which explicitly describe the complete initiation ritual of a pre-Christian king in ancient Scandinavia. However, there are sources from Scandinavia and Europe more broadly describing medieval royal inaugurations that may be based on older ceremonies related to the initiations of pre-Christian rulers. Whether or not elements in the medieval royal inauguration at Mora, south of presentday Uppsala (Sweden), are based on pre-Christian traditions is an old research problem. This royal initiation ritual is visible in the medieval provincial laws of Sweden and other sources. This study argues that there are traces of older traditions behind the medieval versions of the ritual sequence called “king taking” (OSw taka konong) performed at the Mora Stone. Focus is on the location of the ritual site, the terminology used in the preserved textual sources, and the ritual actions and paraphernalia applied when performing this ceremony. A comparative method is applied, which includes archaeological finds and written sources related not only to ancient Sweden and Scandinavia, but also to the Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic areas of Europe. Finally, the question of the mythical dimensions of inaugurations are discussed and the study’s results are related to theories about cultic continuation during the transition to Christianity and theories about religious legitimation of rulership. RESUME: Der er ingen kilder, som eksplicit beskriver en initiation af en førkristen konge i Skandinavien. Til gengæld er der kilder fra Skandinavien og andre dele af Europa, som beskriver kongelige indsættelsesritualer i middelalderen, ritualer som kan være baseret på ældre ceremonier knyttet til initiationer af førkristne herskere. Hvorvidt elementer af kongelige indsættelsesritualer ved Mora, syd for nutidens Uppsala (Sverige) er baseret på førkristne traditioner, er et gammelt forskningsspørgsmål. Dette studie argumenterer for, at der er spor af ældre traditioner bag de middelalderlige 90 Olof Sundqvist versioner af den ritualsekvens, som kaldes ”at tage konge” (OSw taka konong), som fandt sted ved Mora sten. Studiet fokuserer på ritualpladsens lokalitet, den terminologi, som anvendes omkring ritualet i de overleverede skriftlige kilder og de rituelle handlinger og genstande, som benyttes ved udførelsen af ceremonien. En komparative metode benyttes, idet studiet baserer sig på arkæologiske fund og skriftlige kilder, som knytter sig ikke blot til Sverige og Skandinavien, men også til de germanske, slaviske og keltiske områder af Europa. Til slut diskuteres den mytiske dimension af indsættelsesritualerne, og studiets resultater relateres til teorier dels om kultkontinuitet ved overgangen til kristendommen og dels om religiøs legitimering af herskerrollen.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ceremony of “King Taking” at the Swedish Mora Stone

Sundqvist¹

2022

RvT

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“…This phenomenon is often connected to legal space. It may even have been modelled upon pre-Christian Nordic cosmology as argued by Anne Irene Riisøy (2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A telling example of the pre-Christian Icelandic relationship between law and religion is the connection that is often made between legal and sacral space (see also, for instance, Murphy 2018a;Riisøy 2013;Sanmark). Sacral space may be understood as space that is differentiated from its surroundings by being assigned a subjective value (of being sacral) by those who use the space for their religious and ritual practices (Murphy 2016, 144).…”

Section: Spatial Sacralization In Legal Contextsmentioning

confidence: 99%

ein lǫg ok einn siðr: Law, Religion, and their Role in the Cultivation of Cultural Memory in Pre-Christian Icelandic Society

Nygaard¹

2021

scancan

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The transmission of law in pre-Christian Iceland was an oral process in an oral society. In oral societies, such transmission processes may be characterized as a cultivation of cultural memory, which suggests that it was transmitted through a ritualized performance by a memory specialist. In the Icelandic context, this specialist was in all likelihood the lǫgsǫgumaðr. However, the connection between the transmission of law by the lǫgsǫgumaðr and ritual and religion has not yet been established explicitly. This is the subject of the present article, which first views the intricate relationship between law and religion in pre-Christian Iceland through the lens of Max Weber’s theory of value spheres and subsequently treats the transmission of early Icelandic law as a cultivation of cultural memory.

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“…What the archaeological record has revealed in Sweden is similar to the rest of northern Europe: strong heterarchical or corporate institutions powered by common people despite the redevelopment of more visible and more powerful rulers (Figure 4). Roman accounts tell us that the assembly was in continuous use from the Iron Age, medieval chroniclers and missionaries attest to it in the early and later Viking Age, and it was a codified feature of government into the sixteenth century and beyond (Iversen, 2013;Oosthuizen, 2013;Riisøy, 2013; Smith, 2013): local, district and national thing-places, where actions, policies and laws were debated, and kings were elected by popular vote. A mid-fourteenth-century Swedish law code recommended that a king be elected from the king's sons, but that any man born in Sweden could be voted in.…”

Section: Medieval Swedenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reversals of fortune: Shared governance, “democracy,” and reiterated problem-solving

Thurston

2022

Front. Polit. Sci.

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What can the deep past tell us about how “good government” is instituted, replicated, and maintained through time? After a comparative look at late prehistoric political formation in Europe, a case study from Sweden is examined. During the Iron Age, systems of participatory governance developed across Europe, perhaps in response to the autocracies of the previous Bronze Age. Heterarchical structures with systems of checks and balances provided voice for ordinary people, as well as leaders, but there were clear “reversals of fortune,” as autocracy and more egalitarian structures were interspersed through time. The so-called “Long Iron Age” is consequently seen as an extended period of tension between different forms of government, different political ideologies, and the dynamic negotiation of socio-political norms, with repercussions that extend into recent times.

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Sacred Legal Places in Eddic Poetry: Reflected in Real Life?

Cited by 10 publications

References 23 publications

The Ceremony of “King Taking” at the Swedish Mora Stone

The Ceremony of “King Taking” at the Swedish Mora Stone

ein lǫg ok einn siðr: Law, Religion, and their Role in the Cultivation of Cultural Memory in Pre-Christian Icelandic Society

Reversals of fortune: Shared governance, “democracy,” and reiterated problem-solving

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