Abstract

EGGER DE IOLSTER, Nelly. Mujeres en la Saga de Njal. Temas Mediev. [online]. 2004, vol.12, pp.17-35. ISSN 0327-5094.

This article analyses the condition of women in Icelandic society between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. The length of the period studied is due to the fact that the action in the family sagas takes place around the yearone thousand while depicting a society that behaves according to what was the case two and a half centuries later, when they were written down. Since this was the period of the conversion of northern Europe to Christianity, and its acceptance of Christian standards, it was of importance to women who were henceforward benefited by a greater freedom of action in their choice of marital partners.At the same time the article studies the role played by women in the domestic field, above all their highly important contribution to Icelandic economy as weavers of cloth, the value of which was such that it came to supplant silver as a standard to evaluate Icelandic products. Finally the role of women in the sphere of the defense of male honour is pointed out, not so much as avengers themselves but as instigators of bloody revenges, rather than subjecting feuds to legal arbitration.

Keywords : Iceland; women; marriage; revenge.

        · abstract in Spanish | French     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )