Gripla - 20.12.2009, Page 40

GRIPLA40
The Althing was the political centre that gave the whole regime the charac­
ter of a state, albeit a very inchoate one. nordal analyzes its multiple roles
at some length (1942, 142–152, 1993 I, 177–187). But although he does not
explicitly dwell on the point, the most telling way to sum up his argument
is to stress that the Freestate was an anti-monarchic polity. To grasp the
implications of this description, a brief comparative tour d’horizon is need­
ed. Monarchy – the embodiment of the separate centre in a single ruler –
emerges as the characteristic form of statehood in early civilizations and
remains, for a very long time, the dominant type in more advanced ones;
sacral rulership – open to structural variations and historical changes form
the outset – was, as noted above, the primary pattern of monarchy. On the
other hand, the monarchic principle was in practice subject to limitations
(social, political and cultural), and its institutional forms incorporated the
limiting forces in more or less explicit ways. In some historical situations,
the counterweights can develop into alternative models, and state forma­
tion then takes an anti­monarchic turn. the legacies of such transforma­
tions – and of the cultural developments which they made possible –
became key components of the european tradition. As jan Assmann
(2000) has convincingly argued, the invention of monotheism in Ancient
Israel belongs in this context, but in a very paradoxical way: the idea of a
divine legislator de­values the institution of sacred kingship and changes
the relationship between state and community, but does not – apart from
a brief phase of hierocracy – translate into a new kind of political order. At
the same time, monotheism paves the way for new and more transcendent
interpretations of monarchy, but they did not crystallize until after further
detours. An epoch­making anti­monarchic turn occurred in the Greek polis,
and then – in very different circumstances – in the Roman republic. In the
long run (i.e. beginning with late antiquity), the legacies of Greek and
Roman deviations from monarchy were absorbed into civilizational pat­
terns centring on a new alliance of monotheism and monarchy. From this
final synthesis of several traditions, medieval Western Christendom inher­
ited ideas and images of monarchy that in due course developed along three
main lines: through efforts to restore imperial authority, evolving models
of kingship linked to other cultural backgrounds but adapted to the domi­
nant framework, and the consolidation of the Church as a papal monarchy.
Within this unfolding historical context, new anti-monarchic turns could