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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 4674824" data-attributes="member: 77019">Obviously, we could argue forever on this and get nowhere, meanwhile probably boring the rest of the people interested in the thread to death. In the interests of winding this debate down, I'll try to keep my responses to a minimum.  No, we are talking about different parts of Europe across a wide swath of time.   Where in Europe we are talking about. In Viking Age Scandinavia Thralls were a small percentage of the population, ranging from as little as 5% of the community in Norway to possibly as much as 20% in Sweden where they had more Slavic slaves.  <a href="http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/society/text/social_classes.htm" target="_blank">http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/society/text/social_classes.htm</a> It was for pragmatic reasons, not an excess of kindness; it was considered very dangerous to have more slaves around than free people because they could rise up. They did not have the Feudal system, that came later and was a copy of the Roman Latifundia. Thats why they sold most of the ones they captured to the Arabs or the Byzantines.  The vast majority of the population in Scandinavia from the 8th-11th Century were free farmers, in the Bondi, Karl, or Hauldir class (or other similar ones depending on the exact time and place). All of whom could attend the Wapentake at the Thing (Assembly) and all of whom had the right to challenge an enemy to a duel. This also seems to echo the case in Tribal law of pre-Christian Continental Europe, as it is echoed in Celtic insular literature (such as the Brehon laws). The idea of serfdom comes as I'm sure you are aware from Roman law, it was originally enacted in the late Imperial period to keep farmers from fleeing the tax collectors in the country and flocking into the cities where they could live on welfare and join the general mob, which had led to the abandonment of Rome by the Roman government as early as the 3rd Century.   Good links, but personally rather than reading anybody elses interpretations, I'd reccomend just reading the primary sources, such as the Gragas you cite above, and the sagas like [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Saga-Grettir-Strong-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235080591&sr=8-1"]Grettier Saga[/ame], [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Egils-Saga-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447709/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235080629&sr=1-1"]Egils Saga[/ame], [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Njals-Saga-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140447695/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235080666&sr=1-1"]Njals Saga[/ame], the Laxdala Saga, and the various Chronicles such as the Russian Primary Chronicle, Saxo Grammaticus [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Saxo-Grammaticus-History-English-Commentary/dp/0859915026/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1235080727&sr=1-2"]Gesta Danorum[/ame] etc. Grettirs Saga in particular offers and excellent insight into the situation of an outlaw and how the legal system changed under Christianity since it takes place right at the point of conversion in Iceland. It's also a great read, a super badass hero who is a bandit that terrorizes the countryside, kills berzerkers, wights and zombie / ghosts but is ah.. poorly endowed, chronically lonely and afraid of the dark? Gotta love it.  Again, that varied a great deal from Christian to Pagan zones and in different time periods. In Iceland which you cited so extensively as you know the power was in the various regional Things (assemblies) and the Allthing (the annual grand Assembly). One thing that is clear from the sagas is that a rich man who made himself unpopular by throwing his weight around could quickly get in big trouble and end up dead all the sudden.  yes this is a good articulation of the position of the Church. It was against their interest to allow a technology like the Crossbow to be disseminated, and they tried (unsuccessfully) to repress it, because it was a technology which was outside of their control and posed a potential threat to their authority and that of their Aristocratic allies. They were correct in this assessment, since along with other technologies such as halberd and pike squares, war-wagons, flails, pistols and hand culverins it did in fact lead to many regions of Europe achieving de-facto independence (Switzerland, Frisia, Scotland, Bohemia) and to the rise of the independent Free Cities such as the Hanse cities in Germany, the Republic of Venice etc.  Common weapons like awl-spears, javelins, lances and roundel daggers caused the exact same type of puncture wounds. Not that those are much worse than getting half of your arm cut off. That dosn't wash, its an absurd argument.  I do agree with you, for the record, that the Church was not nearly as repressive in the early middle ages as it later became. That is one of the common misconceptions of the "Dark Ages". After the Church revived torture as a legitimate practice, they began cracking down more and more internally, consolidating power and eliminating heretics. The Albigensian Crusade was an early example of this. It wasn't until later until control began to be spread to the commoners. Common people at this time were often considered pagan, the word Pagan comes from Pagani (latin Paganus) which meant peasant, similar to Heathen (Old English hæðen) 'of the Heath') which was a translation of the term Pagan. Later when they had sorted out all the heresies they corrected that ommision. Not that I am one by the way so don't go there. G.</blockquote>

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