What you were about to listen to is part two of a two-part episode which covers

developments in Icelandic society in the 1100s with a principle focus upon the

development and implications of literate culture on the island.

If you haven't yet listened to the first part of this episode,

I highly recommend that you go and give it a listen as this episode jumps in right

where we left off quite literally so if you need to go and listen to that pause this

now and I'll be here waiting.

All listened.

Excellent.

To jog your memory a bit, when we finished our last episode, we had just wrapped up a discussion of the Icelandic tithe law of 1097 CE,

and we had started to look at the impact that that law would have on the first generation of literate Icelanders.

Today, we are going to explore the impacts of this newly literate culture

on Icelandic society at large.

And we'll even take a few moments to explore

how this literate culture impacts our understanding of Icelandic history

today.

I do hope that you enjoy. Oh, Given everything that we have learned so far about Icelandic society, it is perhaps unsurprising that one of the first areas which we see

impacted by the nascent Icelandic literate culture was the law.

This process began, according to Ari the Learnit, with a decision made it the all thing of 1117

that the laws of Iceland should be written down for the very first time.

Ari tells us that quote, the first summer that Berghthor, that is the law speaker

Berghthor Harafson, spoke the law speaker Bergthor-Harraf-Sum spoke the law.

...