Chapter 13
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by what means he intended to enforce this ruling, are alike unknown, and it may be that this order was but a gesture on his part to secure the adherence of at least the later emigrants inasmuch as the king must have known that he had not many loyal subjects among the early settlers. But what mattered most of all to Harald was that during the landnáma period the Icelanders were much too busily employed in developing their new land, and much too far off, to return, as did the Scottish vikings, to harry their mother-country; therefore Norway and Iceland lived at peace, Harald recognizing the hopelessness of controlling, or interfering more than occasionally with, the government of this remote and contented island.
But it was not long before the Icelanders found that the business of the government of their own country was no easy task. The island is large, the little settlements were scattered far apart, and communication between them was slow; moreover, the folk of these settlements were not inclined to submit to any authority other than that of their local chieftain, for these landholders were most of them of equal rank and none might consider himself by virtue of birth or station as entitled to a supreme power.
Yet for the purposes of a rough-and-ready local administration of justice, these colonists had quickly formed themselves into godords, confederacies of neighbouring estates loosely knit together under the leadership of the foremost resident, a chieftain who had assumed the office of godi, that is priest of the temple. By common consent this godi was first among the landowners around, though his powers were ill-defined and his official dignity but small; nevertheless he conducted the ceremonies at the temple and this, since in most instances it was he who had built the temple and who maintained it, meant that his priestly office was but the sign of his wealth and importance. So he also presided over the thing, or folkmoot, of the district and appointed the judges who were to try the cases brought before it.
The problem, then, was to unite these godords by some lasting and respectable political bond, since the chaos resulting from the independence of such small communities was soon distressing the land. For although there were localized attempts to set up hundred-things as a court of appeal for the members of a group of godords, there was no uniform action on these lines, and so long as a common code of law was wanting disputes between members of different godords meant a quarrel that usually ended in war. Men might desert from one godord to
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another and those sufficiently powerful might fearlessly make their own strong arm the law, so that in the bitter feuds that followed such flouting of authority the arbitration of a merely local thing counted for nothing. But more serious still, matters concerning the public welfare of the whole colony had to be neglected since there was no popular assembly of the island where they could be debated.
To the more public-spirited and thoughtful of the godar it was soon plain that if there was to be order and justice at all only a national assembly could ensure a reasonable measure of respect for the simple laws and ordinances that were sufficient to secure this end. And among these godar was one Ulfljot, originally from Hordaland in Norway, to whom, more than to any other, is due the foundation of that celebrated parliament, a thousand years old in 1930, that is known as the Althing. For upon his suggestion, and with the approval of his fellows, he journeyed back to Norway there most diligently to study the constitutions and legal codes of the different assemblies of his mother-country; three years he devoted to this task, most of all in the Gula-thing (p. 104 ), and this done, he returned to Iceland, prepared to frame a code of laws and, more important, having formulated the principles of a constitution for the future republic. This, in its simplest outline, involved the convocation of a national assembly, the Althing, to meet annually for two weeks in the summer and to be attended by all the godar and freeholders, though its powers were to be exercised by an inner body, the lögrétta, or legislative council, formed of forty-eight godar, representing the four Quarters of the island, and ninety-six others. This was to be possessed of complete power within its own sphere and was to act without the general sanction of the whole assembly; but as head of this and director of procedure Ulfljot recommended the election of a lögsögumađr, or lawspeaker, who was to preside over the lögrétta, proclaim the new laws from the lögberg, the law-mount, and whose duty it also should be to recite to the people the whole of the law in the course of three years.
While Ulfljot was in Norway his foster-brother Grim Geitskor was commissioned to explore the whole island in order to discover a suitable meeting-place for an assembly of the kind that was contemplated; the Icelanders were asked to pay him a penny per man for undertaking this task, but Grim would not take this money for himself and preferred that the sum collected should be given to the temple that was later to be built upon
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the chosen place of assembly. And well, indeed, did he perform his search, for the site he chose at last, some 30 miles to the east of Reykjavik, takes high rank among the noblest pilgrimage-places of the world; Thingvellir, Plain of the Thing, is a five-mile-long level greenness that is ribboned by the white waters of the many-channelled Öxará and seamed suddenly by the grey lava-ridge, the Spöng, where through steep-sided ravines the narrow rivers pass on their journey to the huge Thingvalla lake. Here, on the western boundary of the plain, rises a dark and frowning wall of rock, 100 feet in height, that overhangs a long and deep rift, the Almannagjá, Cleft of all Men, and from the 50-foot high eastern cliff of this an abrupt grassy slope descends to the plain, a slope that was to be the meeting-place of the Althing. At its top was lögberg, or law-mount, and arrayed at its foot the lögrétta was to sit in debate, while in the Almannagjá, on the plain below, and on the eastern lava-ridge in the plain, there was room for the booths of the thingmen, their families and attendants, room for the contests and races of the multitude, and room for all the excitements and activities of a thronged and lively national fęte. (1)
Such, then, was the theatre chosen, a fair plain with the boundary of towering cliffs, and there in AD 930 for the first time met the Althing, the grand assize of Iceland. And there the Althing continued to meet year after year almost without interruption until 1798.
The initial success of the newly constituted gathering, however, depended not so much upon its effectiveness as an instrument of government as upon its social usefulness. It became, in fact, a joyous and eagerly awaited assembly of the whole nation, for, there being as yet no town life, no capital of the country, this annual union of legislators, judges, and litigants, was attended by all classes of people, including merchants and marketers, athletes and entertainers, so that Thingvellir during the two summer weeks of the meeting became the temporary and crowded capital of Iceland.
1. From the point of view of acoustics and comfort there is much to be said for Mr. Eggert Briem's notion that lögberg was a little to the west of the position as marked on the map (Fig. 37 ) and that the assembly sat not on the steep slope facing up-hill but in the Almannagjá itself. For an account of the topography of Thingvellir see Matthías Thórdarson, Fornleifar á Thingvelli, Reykjavik, 1922. As to the booths, it should be noted that most of the foundations now to be seen are those of eighteenth century structures; but it is believed that the foundations known as Byrgi's Booth on Spöng and Snorri's booth near lögberg may date back to the saga-period.
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But from the point of view of efficient government it was soon plain that the Althing, in spite of Ulfljot's excellent intentions, was not going to be all that men had hoped of it. And the cause of its failure in this respect was simply that the aristocratic oligarchy of the godar, functioning through this primitive parliament, was provided with no adequate executive power. However perfect was the machinery of debate, of the promulgation of laws, of trial and of the declaration of judgements, this was of little avail without a sufficient power to ensure its smooth working; for the godar, though they might act in assembly as the state, had no armed force at their disposal, no police or government agents, to enforce the observance of the laws they made or to compel the performance of the sentences they passed. They trusted to the goodwill of the people, and though this was not always failing, there was in some respects little improvement upon the lawlessness of the old days when justice could be obtained only at a local court. Violent disputes, bloodshed even, took place before the judges of the Althing and its decrees could be, and often were, safely disregarded by any powerful chieftain who had armed followers at his call.
The difficult and peculiar conditions of social life in Iceland seem to have made it impossible to remedy this disastrous weakness in the government of the Free State and the various attempts that were made to strengthen the authority of the Althing were reforms of the judicial system, for it was this that was the chief source of the troubles that arose. Thus in 965 the four Quarters of the country were each represented by their own court at the Althing, and about 1004 there was added a fifth and supreme tribunal as an ultimate court of appeal. But the main mischief, the lack of executive power, was never remedied, and it was this in the end that caused the downfall of the commonwealth as an independent state.
The institution of the Althing in A.D. 930 is, as is natural, the principal event in early Icelandic history, but another notable landmark is the adoption by the Althing in the year AD 1000 of Christianity as the religion of the commonwealth. There had, of course, been Christians of a kind among the first Norse settlers, such as Aud the Deepminded, who had come to Iceland from the colonies in the Celtic lands, and Orlyg Hrappsson, brought up by Bishop Patrick of the Hebrides, who was given by this prelate when Orlyg went to Iceland timber, a bell, a gospel, and consecrated soil, in order that he might build a church there. But the tale goes that these few Christians wore their faith but lightly and
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that upon their death the paganism of their forefathers triumphed in their families, so that Landnámabók can record how for a period of about a hundred years the country was entirely heathen. Yet it may be that there was more Christianity in Iceland in these early days than Landnámabók will allow, (1) for certainly many Icelanders abroad, whether soldiers of fortune or traders, found it profitable to be baptized; such were the brothers Egil and Thorolf Skallagrimsson who accepted Christianity in England, and Gisli Sursson and his two companions who became Christians at Viborg. Nor was missionary endeavour wholly lacking, for the Irish, whose holy papar had first found Iceland, did not forget the northern isle, and one Asolf Alskik, who was of mixed Norse and Irish descent, journeyed to Iceland with twelve Irish monks; but he made no converts and died as a hermit, though later generations of Icelanders venerated him as a saint.
But another missionary was more successful, baptizing many folk and disturbing the trust of the islanders in their ancient gods. This was Thorvald Kodransson, Iceland-born but a great traveller, who returned in the year 981 to the land of his birth in the company of the Saxon bishop who had baptized him. There, because the bishop had no Norse, Thorvald himself preached the new faith, persuading many Icelanders to receive baptism. For four years these missionaries laboured, but in the end their good works proved to be their undoing, for so indifferent towards the old gods did some of their hearers become that they no longer paid the accustomed temple dues, and this earned for Thorvald and the bishop the uncompromising enmity of the older and more conservative of the godar and chief men. At last, in 984, when Thorvald dared to preach Christianity at the Althing, there was serious trouble, and the end of it all was that in 986 the missionaries found themselves compelled to leave Iceland. Thorvald himself set out upon his journeys again; far and wide he travelled, and finally this first Icelandic evangelist died as a monk in Russia.
Ten years later came the next missionary to Iceland; but the bitterness of the chieftains against Christianity was not yet allayed, and though some of the folk had not forgotten Thorvald's teaching, the newcomer was received but coldly and his robust methods speedily made the faith he had come to spread more unpopular than before. His name was Stefni
1. On this subject, see Dr. Jón Helgason, Islands Kirke, Copenhagen, 1925, p. 17 ff.
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