Abstract
Legal restrictions on vagrancy and day labour in Iceland became increasingly strict in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, culminating with a decree in 1783 which prohibited any form of masterless labour and proscribed compulsory service on a yearly basis for most people over the age of eighteen. Despite strict regulations and the strenuous efforts of various state officials to uproot the problem, vagrancy and day labour remained relatively common and publicly acknowledged throughout the nineteenth century, thus highlighting the contrast between normative prescription (such as law) and everyday life and the ambiguity of power relations in rural Iceland, underscoring their contested nature. This article discusses how vagrants and illegal day labourers in Iceland in the early nineteenth century found ways to evade the authorities and make a living for themselves on the margins of society. It stresses the agency of the working poor and highlights some of the survival strategies employed, including passport fraud, the careful exploitation of cultural notions of hospitality and methods of earning social capital by providing useful services. The article builds on the case of a travelling healer and vagrant named Árni Sveinsson who was found guilty of vagrancy, forgery and quackery in 1821. His trial provides rare insights into the tactics employed by those on the margins of the law to get around undetected.
Highlights
The article builds on the case of a travelling healer and vagrant named Árni Sveinsson who was found guilty of vagrancy, forgery and quackery in 1821
The case itself dates from the early nineteenth century, the trial of Árni Sveinsson shows the long lasting impact of early modern ideas on household discipline and social order established through the strict regulation of labour practices.[7]
On the other hand the case discloses to observant readers valuable insights into how vagrants, day labourers and others who operated illegally on the margins of the compulsory service system found ways to subsist within the interstices of Icelandic society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to evade the authorities and earn a living through networking skills and various survival tactics in spite of the law
Summary
It is in light of this legal framework that the combination of tactics (or ‘repertoire of practices’) which make up the survival strategies of vagrants and day labourers will be analysed and discussed in this article. Those deemed able but unwilling to work and the principal subjects of state efforts to eradicate the ‘problem’ of vagrancy, took advantage of this custom and commonly travelled through local communities by moving from one farm to the and staying for a short while in each place presumably without ever being reported.[73] Some invented fake names and fabricated stories about their dire circumstances in order to gain sympathy, such as the absconding servant Jón Jónsson who, having fled from his master, travelled around northern and western Iceland in 1835‒36 under the pretence that he had been an impoverished peasant in a distant region but that he had been driven off his croft and his family split up by the authorities.[74] Not least because of such tactics, local authorities regularly found reason to issue proclamations reminding peasants that it was against the law to provide lodgings to vagrants and others without passports.[75]. The court case in Húnavatnssýsla around Christmas 1820 is the only record of his wanderings and the first and only time he was tried for vagrancy, even though a posthumous account states that he remained a vagrant and travelling healer for the rest of his life.[80]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: 1700-tal: Nordic Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
