THE NORTH GERMANIC HOUSE OF THE
SAGA PERIOD
In 1889 the Icelandic literary historian and philogist
Valtyr Gudmundsson[50]
was able to demonstrate, on the
basis of a careful and painstaking analysis of words and
passages in the Nordic Sagas referring to the layout and
construction of houses, that the Germanic standard house
of the Saga Period (ninth to thirteenth centuries) in Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland was a three-aisled
timber structure with an open fireplace (eldr, "fire" or
arinn, "hearth") in the middle of its center aisle (golf);
that this house received its light through an opening in
the roof (ljóri, "light inlet"), which also served as a smoke
outlet (hence also referred to as reykháfr or reykberi, "smoke
hole,") and which could be closed and opened by means of
ropes or poles; that the roof (ráf or ræfr) of this house
was supported by a free-standing inner frame of timber,
composed of two longitudinal rows of uprights (súlur,
stafir, stođir, stolpar, and sometimes more specifically referred
to as innstafir or innstolpar, "inner posts," in contradistinction
to the útstafir, the corresponding "outer" or
"wall posts"), which were connected lengthwise by means
of roof plates (ásar or langvidir, "long beams") and crosswise
by means of tie beams (vagl, vaglbiti or þvertrè,
"crosstree"). Gudmundsson summarized his findings
visually in a plan and a perspective view of the interior of
the Saga house, drawn up for him by E. Rondahl (figs. 284
A-B).[51]
He demonstrated that this house type could be used
for a variety of purposes, without changing any of its basic
dispositions. It served, as circumstances demanded, as a
general living house (stofa or stufa), as a dining or festal
hall (drykkjuskáli, veizluskáli), as kitchen or fire house
(elda skáli), as sleeping hall (skáli or hviluskáli), even, as a
hay or cattle barn (hlađa or fjóshlađa). In the early days—
and subsequently in the lower social strata—all these functions
were performed simultaneously under one roof; later,
as increasing wealth and social prestige permitted, they
were progressively relegated to separate buildings.
Gudmundsson could establish that in the general living
house as well as in the festal or banqueting hall the floors
of the aisles (langpallar) and of the cross bay at the upper end
of the house were, in general, raised above the level of the
center floor and covered with wooden planks. Long benches
(langbekkir) and tables (borđ) were set up in the aisles
parallel to the two long walls of the house and also crosswise
along the gable wall at the rear of the house. This raised
section at the innermost part of the house was referred to as
the crossbench (þverpallr).
The chieftain or owner of the house sat on his high seat
(œdra öndvegi, "first seat of honor") in the middle of one
of the two long benches (i miđju bekk) while his principal
guest of honor occupied the second best high seat (úœdra
öndvegi) in the middle of the opposite bench. The women sat
on the crossbench at the rear of the house. The fire
crackled in the middle of the center floor. The entrance lay,
in general, in the center of one of the two gable sides of the
house, and was often separated from the rest of the house by
an entrance hall (forstofa, forskáli) which occupied the foremost
bay of the house, forming a counterpart to the women's
cross bench at the opposite gable. Often this entrance bay
was separated from the main space by a cross partition
(þverpili), which had in its center a second or inner door.
The walls of the Saga house (veggir, or, more specifically,
langveggir, "long wall," and gaflveggir, "gable walls") were,
as a rule, constructed of earth or turf (torfi), and insulated
inside with a wooden paneling (veggþili). The rafters rose
from wall plates (syllr or staflægjur) and converged at the
top in a ridge beam (mœniáss) which was carried by short
king posts (dvergr, "dwarf post") rising from the center of
the tie beams.
From numerous incidental references to the house, made
in the dramatic accounts of battles waged when a householder
and his family were attacked in their sleep and
forced to rise to defend themselves, Gudmundsson could
infer that the sleeping house (skáli) was divided lengthwise,
like the stofa, into a center aisle and two lateral
aisles and received its warmth from an open fire that burned
in the middle of the center floor. As in the stofa, the floors
of the lateral aisles were raised above the level of the center
aisle and covered with wooden planks. But instead of
supporting tables, the aisle floors of the skáli (called set)
were covered with a bedding of straw and subdivided
crosswise into individual sleeping compartments by means
of rugs or "hangings" (sængarklæđi) suspended from cross
beams. Each compartment was sufficiently large to accommodate
two people (sengefeller, "bedfellows") lying parallel
to the walls of the building, one outside (fyrir ofan) or near
the wall paneling (
vid þili), the other inside (
fyrir framan)
or near the sleeper beam (
vid stokk, i.e., the floor beam that
forms the edge of the slightly raised level of the aisles). The
bedsteads of the master and his wife were often separated
from the adjoining bedsteads by means of a wooden wall
partition, so as to form a bed closet (
rekkja) that could be
locked and was then called a
lokhvílu (lockable closet). One
or two further closets of this type were frequently installed
for persons next in rank or for guests of honor.
In like manner the aisles of the cattle barns were subdivided
into individual cross compartments for the stabling
of the livestock.
As one reviews this evidence one cannot fail to be struck
by the amazing similarity of the North-Germanic Saga
house, spatially and functionally, with that of the guest and
service structures of the Plan of St. Gall. Both have as
nucleus an open center space accessible to all, which gives
admittance to a peripheral suite of outer spaces surrounding
the center space on three or all four sides. In both, the
hearth lies in the middle of the center space and has in
the roof above it a shielded opening that serves as a smoke
outlet. In both this layout is used, either separately or
combined, without requiring the slightest alterations of its
basic dispositions, as shelter for the people, as shelter for
their livestock, and as shelter for the harvest.
There are, to be sure, some distinctive differences. The
Saga house has its entrance, in general, in the middle of one
of its gable walls; that of the St. Gall House is, in the
majority of cases, in the middle of one of its long walls. Yet
three of the St. Gall houses belong to the former type.[52]
Another difference is to be found in the fact that in such
buildings as the House for Distinguished Guests and the
Hospice for Pilgrims and Paupers, the tables and benches
are ranged around the periphery of the center space (figs.
392 and 396). In the Saga house they are set up in the
aisles and on the cross bench. Only on extraordinary
occasions, namely, when the throng of visitors was so
great that they could not all be accommodated in the aisles
and on the cross bench, were special rows of chairs set up
in the nave of the hall. A typical case in point is the fateful
wedding banquet given in the winter of 1253 in Gizur
Thorvaldsson's home at Flugumyr (figs. 328A-B). The
number of guests attending this party amounted to well
over a hundred men (á œdra hundradi). Since Gizur's dining
hall was only 26 ells long and 12 ells broad (stofan var
sex álna ok tottugu löng, en tólf alna breiđ), the host gave
orders that in addition to all the seats that could be placed
in the aisles (the seating capacity of the aisles and of the
cross bench had already been doubled by the setting up of
an outer row of forechairs), two further rows of stools
should be set up in the center aisle. The latter were borrowed
from the church. "And lengthwise all along the
two benches there were forechairs and all along the center
aisle church stools were set up on which people sat in two
rows."[53]
Finally, the outer spaces of the St. Gall house
appear to have been more rigidly separated from the center
space than was the case in the house of the Sagas. But of
this there will be more to say in a later chapter.
