Tribal states vs feudal states in 10-11th century

 

 

Well, the Danes become once again a superpower when Canute(or  Knud) the Great became the king of Denmark, England, Norway and Sweden creating in fact scandinavian empire. By the way, Canute was half Polish. His mother Swietoslawa (known in nordic countries as Sigríð Storråda or in english as Sigrid the Haughty known also as Gunhild - the wife of king Sven Forkbeard was a daughter of Polish duke Mieszko I and sister of Boleslaw I the Brave. Thats explained how it happend that for the invasion of England he took with himself also hundrieds of Polish soldiers that he recived as help from his mighty brother in law Boleslaw I the Brave.

 

I cant agree. Danes, Norwegians and Swedes until the half of 10th century, as well as Poles lived in some kind of tribal democracy. They had their tribal meetings where all free people were meeting. In scandinavia those meetings were called "Thing" and in slavic countries "Wiec". Till half of 10th century scandinavia was a conglomerate of tens of little kingdoms (because they called their little chieftains "kings") as well as Slavic lands where leader was known as "kniaz" later "ksiaze" what into english is translated as prince or duke. In all those countries they were elective, at least on the begining. Later those scandinavian and slavic dukes started to have some number of standing troops what streghtened their power and allowed them to introduce hereditary monarchy. For me it is clear that they were not able to introduce feudal system in short time and they cant be compared with France or England where feudalism had much longer history. It took much more time to make many of free men the paesanst who were bound to land and for king to get the power over people, the power which they didnt have in the past. Thats why i still claim that those states were in 10th and 11th century still more tribal than feudal.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

 

In the pre-Christian clan-culture of Scandinavia the members of a clan were obliged to avenge injuries against their dead and mutilated relatives. A balancing structure was necessary to reduce tribal feuds and avoid social disorder. We know from the North-Germanic cultures the balancing institution was the ting although similar assemblies are reported also from other Germanic peoples and others.

The ting was the assembly of the free people of a country, province or a hundred (hundare/härad/herred). There were consequently hierarchies of tings, so that the local tings were represented at the higher-level ting, for a province or land. At the ting, disputes were solved and political decisions were made. The place for the ting was often also the place for public religious rites and for commerce.

The ting met at regular intervals, legislated, elected chieftains and kings, and judged according to the law, which was memorized and recited by the "law speaker" (the judge). The ting's negotiations were presided over by the law speaker and the chieftain or the king. In reality the ting was of course dominated by the most influential members of the community, the heads of clans and wealthy families, but in theory one-man one-vote was the rule.

Haugathing, the Thing for Vestfold in Norway, was located in Tønsberg at Haugar (from the Old Norse haugr meaning hill or mound). This site was one of Norway's most important place for the proclamation of kings. In 1130, Harald Gille called together a meeting at the Haugathing at which he was declared to be King of Norway. Sigurd Magnusson was proclaimed king in 1193 at the Haugathing. Magnus VII was acclaimed hereditary King of Norway and Sweden at the Haugathing in August 1319.^[4]

A famous incident took place when Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker told the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung that it was the people that held power in Sweden and not the king. The king realized that he was powerless against the ting and gave in. Main things in Sweden were the Thing of all Swedes, the Thing of all Geats and the Lionga thing.

The island of Gotland had in late medieval time twenty tings, each represented at the island-ting called landsting by its elected judge. New laws were decided at the landsting, which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole. The landsting's authority was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order in 1398. In late medieval times the ting-court consisted of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You seems to have knowledge that lack people who write books about vikings . Especially the theory about people who were reslavized after WW2 I find ridicullous. Could you please give any sources - especially German from the 10-11thth century that claim that isle of Rugia was Germanic not Slavic? And I mean the people from Rugia in the 9th-12th century, not migrations of Germanic tribes in the 1th century. However the isle took name from Germanic tribe who lived there centuries earlier......

 

Maximus you are mixing things more than icelandic saga's.....

 

 

chceck this topic too - unlike here in that debate took part several scandinavians: