Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
a flagpole marking the presumed site of
Lögberg
, the rock where important speeches
were made and the lawspeaker recited Iceland's laws to the assembled masses below.
Nearby traces of walls outline the remains of
buðs
, the temporary roofed camps raised
by participants during assemblies.
Öxaráfoss
Some 250m along the rift wall past the flagpole, the
Öxará
cascades over Almannagjá
as the 20m-high
Öxarárfoss
.
Rocks in the river are barely worn, suggesting that
the Öxará's path is fairly recent: this supports oral accounts of the river's diversion
into the rift around 1000 AD to provide water for the sizeable chunk of Iceland's
population who descended at each Alþing. After Danish laws were enforced in the
sixteenth century,
pools
near the second falls were used to drown women convicted of
witchcraft or sexual offences (men were beheaded or burnt at the stake for the same
crimes), though the idea of a death penalty was repugnant to Icelanders and few such
executions were carried out.
2
THE ALÞING AT ÞINGVELLIR
With laws shall our land be built up, but with lawlessness laid waste.
Njál's Saga
By the beginning of the tenth century, Iceland's 36 regional chieftains were already meeting at
local
assemblies
to sort out disputes, but as the country became more established, they
recognized the need for some form of national government. With this in mind, Norwegian law
was adapted and the first
Alþing
, or General Assembly, was held in the rift valley north of
Þingvallavatn in 930 AD, at a place which became known as
Þingvellir
, the Assembly Plains.
Though the Alþing's power declined through the ages, Þingvellir remained the seat of Iceland's
government for the next eight centuries.
The Alþing was held for two weeks every summer, and attendance for chieftains was
mandatory. In fact, almost everyone who could attend did so, setting up their tented camps
-
buðs
- and coming to watch the courts in action or settle disputes, pick up on gossip, trade,
compete at sports and generally socialize. The whole event was coordinated by the
lawspeaker
, while the laws themselves were legislated by the
Law Council
, and dispensed
at four regional courts, along with a fifth
supreme court
. Strangely, however, none of these
authorities had the power to enforce their verdicts, beyond bringing pressure to bear through
public opinion. The adoption of
Christianity
as Iceland's of
cial religion in 1000 AD was one
of the Alþing's major successes, but if litigants refused to accept a court's decision, they had to
seek satisfaction privately.
Njál's Saga
(see p.120) contains a vivid account of one such event,
when a battle between two feuding clans and their allies broke out at the Alþing itself around
1011 AD; while
Hrafnkel's Saga
(see p.278) shows how people manipulated processes at the
Alþing and could, if they wanted, ignore court verdicts.
This lack of real authority undermined the Alþing's effectiveness, creating a power vacuum
in Iceland that ultimately saw Norway and then Denmark assume control of the country. By
the late thirteenth century the Alþing was losing its importance, with the lawspeaker's
position abolished and the courts stripped of all legislative power. They had rather more
ability to act on their judgements though, and from the mid-sixteenth century public
executions
- unknown before - were carried out at Þingvellir. Eventually, while still
meeting for a few days every year, the Alþing became a minor affair, and the last assembly
was held at Þingvellir in 1798, replaced during the nineteenth century by a national court
and parliament at Reykjavík.
It was during the nineteenth century that Þingvellir became the focus of the
nationalist
movement
, with large crowds witnessing various independence debates here - the Danish
king even attended Iceland's millennial celebrations at Þingvellir in 1874. It remained a symbol
of national identity through the twentieth century, peaking when half the country turned up
at Þingvellir to hear the
declaration of independence
from Denmark and the formation of
the Icelandic Republic on June 17, 1944.
