Text and transactions in Commonwealth Iceland*

I thank Gísli Pálsson for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I thank Hjörleifur Jönsson for his help in counting, checking, and double‐checking the numbers, and preparing the tables. All translations are mine.

Although the Family sagas about events of two to three hundred years in the past and the Sturlunga sagas about contemporary 13th century events were written about the same time, they record different frequencies of several classes of economic and legal transactions. These differences are consistent with the changes we would expect to occur in a stratified society without a state. These differences add credibility to the sagas as sociological representations of the society of the past.

Notes

I thank Gísli Pálsson for his comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I thank Hjörleifur Jönsson for his help in counting, checking, and double‐checking the numbers, and preparing the tables. All translations are mine.