Everyone knows that Viking Age Scandinavia was a barbaric and lawless place, right? With all that stealing, killing, property destruction, and selling of people into slavery, who else could get away with all that mayhem if not people with a complete disregard for law and order?

Well, if that’s your view of the viking world, we’ve got news for you. In this episode we chat with Professor and Dr. Alexandra Sanmark of the University of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, an expert in all things legal and judicial in Viking Age society.

Turns out, those Scandinavians knew a thing or two about crime and punishment and took it very seriously. The result was an intricate set of laws, courts, and procedures that were part of Germanic custom going all the way back to the Roman era. We talked to her about various legal policies and procedures, what our sources are for them, and where those public assemblies took place. We also discussed the legal parity that the Viking Age is famous for in our modern imaginations. The reality may surprise you.

Her book Viking Law and Order: Places and Rituals of Assembly in the Medieval North spells out the complex nature of Norse systems at a time when laws were not written down but performed and remembered visually and orally. It’s a fasinating look into a culture that counters our every impulse thought about what it meant to be a “viking.”

Thanks Alex, it was a most interesting and thought-provoking pleasure!

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