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Message: <blockquote data-quote="big dummy" data-source="post: 2883746" data-attributes="member: 41052">Thats actually true, at least in early (pagan) Norse society.  One of the interesting things about the Norse, which probably says a lot about European prehistory, is that they defied the conventional anthropological model, in that while they had very high level technology (arguably best in the world in certain aspects of Metalurgy and naval architecture to name just two) and sophisticated culture in many ways, they did not have true specialists.  Norse people were multi-talented individuals.  A given individual could primarily be a farmer, yet also be a fisherman, a lawyer, a trader, and a blacksmith in addition to being a warrior.Another of the side jobs or hobbies people adopted was in acting as religious figures during public ceremonies such as at the 'Thing' or common legal / governmental / religious assembly. One of the major difficulties the Christians had in converting the pagan Norse was that they had no local priest class to contend with, in the long run they ended up having to root out individual pagans and pagan families, which is partly why the conversion of the Norse ended up being so brutal.It's also worth noting that the Norse had no word for "religion" itself.Of course all this changed once they were converted, society began to stratify along the Christian / Feudal model, you had a professional soldier class emerge around the royal bodyguard ('Huscarls") the Baendir landholders or "Karls" who once had the equivalent legal status of an English Saxon Lord (according to surviving treaty documents) were pushed down in status to become english "Churls" or serfs.BD</blockquote>

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