VIOLENCE AND THE RESTRAINT THEORY

This research paper examines the role of violence and its restraint in early Scandinavian society and the contrasting attitudes of the early Christians to violence under Roman rule in the early third century A.D. These two societies had diametrically opposed attitudes toward violence and its control.

The Icelandic saga, Gunnlaug Wormtongue, concerns a late 10th century blood feud between young rival suitors, Gunnlaug Wormtongue, the son of Ilugi the Black, a Norse chieftain in Iceland, and Hrafn, the son of Onund, a local high priest, for the hand of the beautiful Helga, daughter of Thorstein Egilsson, another chieftain. Helga is pledged in marriage by her father to both protagonists. Gunnlaug fails to return from his foreign travels within the time specified by her father so Hrafn's later vows take precedence over his. Helga marries Hrafn. Passionately devoted to Helga and she to him, Gunnlaug challenges Hrafn to a fight to the death, which takes place on an island off the Norwegian coast. Both rivals and their cohorts are killed in sword fights.

Violence played an important role in early Scandinavian society. It was controlled largely by a strict code of family honor and law at home and by providing outlets for it abroad in the form of Viking raids on northern Europe. Other restraints, which are mentioned but understated in th

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gas were argued and eventually settled" in court (Magnusson 201). As the saga notes, the family feud it recounts "was the last island combat to take place in Iceland" (208). Hardly democratic, Icelanders had a parliament before England, their Althing, which "depended on a willing acceptance of the concept of law and order in an age of violence" (Magnusson 930). The other way the Norsemen controlled violence was by exporting it. Many explanations have been offered for the devastating raids of the Vikings on the shores of Northern Europe between 800 and 1100, including climactic changes, overpopulation, escape from dynastic struggles at home and thirst for adventure. Over time, generations of farming and a system of inheritance (primogeniture) lessened the opportunities for young men to acquire social status through fighting at home. "Tests of manly strength would result in . . . crimes and wasteful feuds . . . War overseas was more adventurous . . . and . . . much more profitable" (Loyn 27). Loyn says that "younger sons . . . would look elsewhere, away from the land for their status achievements" (26-27). The Vikings, marauders from Norway and later Denmark, with their great shipbuilding, navigational and martial skills, attract
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1399
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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