The Legal Status of Foreign Spouses in Medieval Iceland

This article examines the legal status of foreign spouses according to the medieval Icelandic code “Grey Goose” (Grágás). In particular, it examines the issues of inheritance of property of both foreigners who died in Iceland and Icelanders who died outside their land. The right of relatives on the wife's side to avenge a murdered foreign husband is analyzed separately. According to the Icelandic Grágás, there are two groups of foreigners whose rights as spouses and heirs differed significantly. The first group, the “close” ones, included Scandinavians (Danes, Swedes and Norwegians). And the second, the “distant” ones, included everyone else. At the same time, the first group had certain advantages over the second. The division into categories occurred according to a person’s belonging to the Scandinavian cultural community: the second category included all foreigners whose language was not Old Norse. This was probably due, on the one hand, to the frequency of contacts (and, accordingly, probable marriages and subsequent family ties), and on the other, to the closeness of language.