Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Commonwealth: 930-1262 AD
By the early tenth century, Iceland was firmly occupied and had begun to see itself as
an independent nation in need of national government. The chieftains rejected the idea
of a paramount leader, and instead decided, in 930, on a
Commonwealth
governed by a
national assembly, or
Alþing
, which came to be held for two weeks every summer at
Þingvellir
in southwestern Iceland. Here laws were recited publicly by a
lawspeaker
,
and disputes settled by four regional courts, with a supreme court formed early in the
eleventh century. Legal settlement typically involved payment to the injured party or
their family; the highest punishment was not death but being declared an
outlaw
, thus
being exiled from Iceland. Courts had no power to enforce decisions, however, only
make recommendations, and though they held great public authority, in practice their
decisions could be ignored - something which was to undermine the Commonwealth
in later years.
The first century of the Commonwealth was very much a golden era, however: the
country was united, resources were rich, and farming profitable. This was the
Saga Age
,
the time when the first generations of Icelanders were carving out great names for
themselves in events that passed into oral lore and would only later be written down.
The Coming of Christianity
The late tenth century had seen Norway convert to
Catholicism
under the fiery king
Ólafur Tryggvason
. Ólafur
then sent the missionary
Þangbrand
to evangelize Iceland,
where - despite having to physically battle strong resistance from pagan stalwarts - he
baptized several influential chieftains. Back in Norway, Þangbrand's unfavourable
reports infuriated Ólafur, who was only prevented from executing all Icelanders in the
country by the Icelandic chieftain
Gizur the White
, who promised to champion the new
religion at home. Gizur mustered his forces and rode to the Alþing in 1000, where civil
war was only averted by the lawspeaker
Þorgeir
, who - having made pagan and
Christian alike swear to accept his decision - chose Christianity as Iceland's official
religion, though pagans were initially allowed to maintain their beliefs in private. Gizur
the White's son
Ísleifur
became Iceland's first
bishop
in 1056, and his homestead at
THE DISCOVERY OF NORTH AMERICA
In the same way that Iceland itself was discovered, Icelandic seafarers also came across their
own new worlds. In 980, Eiríkur Þorvaldsson (better known in English as
Erik the Red
) was
outlawed for killing his neighbour and sailed from the West Fjords to follow up earlier reports
of land to the northwest. He found a barren, treeless coastline, then returned to Iceland to
whip up support for colonizing what he called
Greenland
- a misleading name, chosen
deliberately to arouse interest. Enough people were hooked to emigrate along with Eiríkur,
and two settlements were founded in Western Greenland which lasted until the sixteenth
century. And it was from Greenland that Eiríkur's son
Leifur Eiríksson
heard that land had
been sighted even further west, and set sail around the year 1000 to discover Ba
n Island,
Labrador, and “
Vínland
”, an as-yet unidentified area of the north American coast. A couple of
attempts made by others to colonize these distant lands came to nothing, however, and
America was then forgottenabout by Europeans until Columbus rediscovered it.
1262
1106
1117
1130
1220
Treaty signed
giving Norwegian
king power over
Iceland
The diocese of
Hólar í Hjaltadalur
is established
First laws
written down
Ári the Wise compiles
the
Íslendingabók
on
Iceland's people
Sturlung Age
of Icelandic
clans begins
