Thorir’s bargain: gender, vaðmál and the law

Abstract

Archaeological textiles from Iceland have not been objects of significant analyzes until recently, yet they provide important new data on the use of cloth in legal transactions. Medieval Icelandic law codes and narrative sources include regulations governing the production of ‘legal cloth’ – vaðmál – and its uses for paying tithes and taxes, for economic transactions and in legal judgments. Archaeological data provide new insights on its production, the extent to which these laws were followed, and how ubiquitously Iceland’s ‘legal’ cloth was produced. This paper compares documentary sources and archaeological data to document intensive standardization in cloth production across Iceland from the eleventh to the late sixteenth centuries. The role of women as weavers is critical, as it is they who oversaw production and ensured that regulations were respected and as a result they may have been bestowed with more power than previously anticipated.