Icelandic Commonwealth

the Icelandic Parliament, Reykjavík building built. The founding of the Althing (Parliament) marked the beginning of the Commonwealth. The Icelandic Commonwealth or the Icelandic Free State (Icelandic: Þjóðveldið) was the state existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing (parliament) in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king in 1262. It was initially established by a public consisting largely of recent immigrants from Norway who had fled the unification of that country under King Harald Fairhair. As a political system, the commonwealth allowed citizens to choose their own "chief". The system as a whole, which had no coercive power or law-enforcement agency, rested on a social contract.

==Goðorð system==

The medieval Icelandic state had an unusual structure. At the national level, the Althing was both court and legislature; there was no king or other central executive power. Iceland was divided into numerous goðorð (plural same as singular), which were essentially clans or alliances run by chieftains called goðar (singular goði). Each chief built and was responsible for running a pagan shrine. The chieftains provided for defense and appointed judges to resolve disputes between goðorð members. The goðorð were not strictly geographical districts. Instead, membership in a goðorð was an individual's decision, and one could, at least theoretically, change goðorð at will. However, no group of lesser men could elect or declare someone a goði. The position was the property of the goði; and could be bought, sold, borrowed, and inherited. Under the commonwealth, there was no public property. All property was privately owned. There were nine chiefs in four quarters. Three chiefs came together to form a "Thing" (Assembly). The Athlin was the national assembly, which met annually. The system made it difficult if not impossible for any individual to accrue too much power, since people could switch their loyalties and there was no "property" for him to dispense. With no king or chief executive, the commonwealth was a unique political system at this time. A law-speaker was elected every three years. They memorized the law, presided at court and offered legal advise.

Court system

If a person wanted to appeal a decision made by his goðorð court or if a dispute arose between members of different goðorð, the case would be referred to a system of higher-level courts, leading up to the four regional courts which made up the Althing, which consisted of the goðar of the Four Quarters of Iceland. The Althing eventually created a national "fifth court", as the highest court of all, and more goðar to be its members. There were no police to enforce the laws, which rested instead on the citizens free participation in a social contract.

|At the Christian Conversion of Iceland in 1000, the Althing decreed that all Icelanders must be baptized, and forbade the public celebration of pagan rituals. Private celebration was forbidden a few years later. The introduction of Chr9istinaity also led to the first tax, the tithe, which citizens had to pay to maintain the Church and its clergy.

In 1117 the laws were put into writing, and this written code was later referred to as the Gray Goose Laws. Fines imposed for crime went as restitution to the victim or to their family, not to the "state". All law was civil, because the court system made no distinction between criminal or civil cases. Murder was punished with a fine, or exile.

Life within the system

19th-century interpretation of the Althing in the Icelandic Commonwealth

The actual operation of this system is a common subject matter in some of the Icelandic sagas. Works like Njáll’s Saga and the Laxdaela Saga give many details, but their accuracy has been disputed. These and other sagas are available in modern English translations. The tale of Grettir the Strong is an excellent adventure story based on true events, but tells us little about the workings of the society.

Njáll’s Saga includes the Christianization of Iceland within the framework of the story.

Warfare

The follower of the goðar owed them military service. They were organized into platoons or companies based on their social status and equipment, which formed expeditionary armies or leiðangrs. Icelandic military tradition of the time followed closely developments in Norway. No organized cavalry formations or formations of projectile weapon equipped troops are recorded, instead bulk of the forces were formed in units of light, medium and heavy infantry, with bow and arrow equipped or rock throwing troops distributed among them operating as light support skirmishers. There was no professional or standing army, since Iceland did not fear attack - the seas were under Icelandic control.

Before the end of the Commonwealth at least 21 fortresses and castles had been built in Iceland.

During the Civil War that broke out as a result of the Christianization process between supporters of the new and of the old religion, the average battle consisted of little less than 1000 men with the average casualty rate of only 15%. This low casualty rate has been attributed to the blood-feud mentality that permeated Icelandic society which meant that the defeated army could not be slaughtered honorably to a man.

Life in the Commonwealth, however, was typically stable. Despite what has been described as minimal government, hence the system is often referred to as an anarchy, it took 300 years before civil war broke out, which was caused the challenge that Christianity presented to old beliefs and practices. In other words, it was a type of external intervention that finally caused the end of the commonwealth experiment.

Decline and fall

In the early 13th century, the Sturlung era, the Commonwealth began to suffer from serious internal strife. The King of Norway began to exert pressure on his Icelandic vassals to bring the country under his rule. The term "Sturlung" is derived from the name of one of the chiefs who in 1220 agreed to recognize the authority of the Norwegian king. Encouraged by this the king tried to recruit additional vassals. This, combined with increased competition between the smaller number of chiefs, led to the civil war. Finally, the Icelandic chieftains agreed, after about 45 years of war, to accept Norway's Haakon IV as king by the signing of the Gamli sáttmáli ("Old Covenant") in 1262. This effectively brought the Commonwealth to an end.

Legacy

The Icealandic Commonwealth commonwealth has been cited as an example of how little or "small" government and the privatization of its functions can result in a stable and peaceful society. David Friedman says that the Commonwealth might well have beem

invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions. Killing was a civil offense resulting in a fine paid to the survivors of the victim. Laws were made by a "parliament," seats in which were a marketable commodity. Enforcement of law was entirely a private affair. And yet these extraordinary institutions survived for over three hundred years, and the society in which they survived appears to have been in many ways an attractive one . Its citizens were, by medieval standards, free; differences in status based on rank or sex were relatively small; and its literary, output in relation to its size has been compared, with some justice, to that of Athens.

Long argues that instability was created by the introduction of the Church tithe, which, collected by the goðar was unlinked with accountability. This introduced a "a monopolistic, non-competitive element in the system". The tithe was territorially based, so citizens could not shift their loyalties. This led to the emergence of a small number of territorially powerful chiefs, who coerced or bribed other chiefs to transfer their tithe-collecting rights. Competition between these chiefs contributed to the civil war, as "the resulting struggle for hegemony among" what could now be described as "mini-states broke out into open conflict, a crisis that was finally resolved only when the Icelanders, exhausted by civil war, invited King Haakon of Norway to govern them, thus bringing the Free State period to a close".

While it lasted, the commonwealth functioned at peace with itself because its citizens wanted to keep live secure and

See also

• Anarchism

Notes

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Derry, T. K. 1979. A history of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.9780816608355
• Gunnar Karlsson. 2000. The history of Iceland. Minneapolis, Minn: University of Minnesota Press.ISBN 9780816635887
• Jóhannesson, Jón, and Haraldur Bessason. 2006. A history of the old Icelandic Commonwealth = Islendinga saga. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.ISBN 9780887556968.
• Jón Viðar Sigurðsson. 1999. Chieftains and power in the Icelandic commonwealth. The Viking collection, v. 12. [Odense]: Odense University Press. ISBN 9788778380562

External links

• An article by David Friedman describing the goðorð system in more detail.
• An article by Roderick Long presenting a theory of the causes of the commonwealth's end
• Medieval Iceland: Society, Sagas, and Power by Jesse L. Byock
• Medieval Iceland and the Absence of Government