Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 2.1
An Information System Embodied in a Single Individual
Figure 2.3
Alþing in session. W. G. Collingwood.
Lawspeakers are characteristic of oral societies, and the Icelandic law-
speaker is of relatively late date and well-documented, with some concur-
rent and developing elements of written literacy. The lawspeaker would
recite the law to the members of the annual assembly, or Alþing, as a lin-
ear spoken utterance, reciting one third of the laws at each meeting (Short
2008).
Selection power
is evidenced in dialogic questioning and response, with
evidence for the possibility of questioning separately from the recitation of
the law. For instance, in
Njal's Saga
, the lawspeaker is consulted for confir-
mation of an aspect of the law.
Flosi asked if this were the law, but Eyjolf replied that he did not know for certain
and said that the Law-Speaker would have to settle that point. Thorkel Geitisson
went on their behalf and told the Law-Speaker the situation, and asked if there were
any legal basis for Mord's submission.
“There are more great lawyers alive today than I thought,” replied Skapti. “I can tell
you that this is so precisely correct that not a single objection can be raised against it.
But I had thought that I was the only person who knew this specialty of the law now
that Njal is dead, for to the best of my knowledge he was the only other man who
knew it.” (Njal 1280/1960, 308).
