Gripla - 01.01.1975, Page 146

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GRIPLA
be a genuinely pagan institution in Iceland) is reserved for the for-
mulation of public vows (heitdagr).7
If now we cast a glance over some fundamental aspects of the
political and juridical institutions, it is clear that the greatest part of
the deepest structures has remained unchanged, having in fact nothing
to offend the new ideals coming from abroad. The old Germanic law
had very ancient roots, its spirit was quite original, and most of its
specific constituents—the administrative and political system, the juris-
diction, the constitution of popular assemblies or þing—existed long
before the settlement of Iceland. The link between religion and law
was also particularly deep-rooted, and this feeling could not but re-
main very sensitive, even in the XlIIth century. For instance, when
Þorgils skarði delegates his powers to Þórðr Hítnesingr to consecrate
the autumn þing at Þverá (helga Þverárleið, Þorgils Saga Skarða, ch.
27), it is clear that this consecration is a ceremony which is older
than the christianization of Iceland, even though Þórðr had to pro-
nounce Christian formulas. The same applies to the drinking toasts, as
we will see later; the Church could modify the formulas, it could not
alter the rites. And, sacred as it had certainly once been, we are aston-
ished to see that one unique passage in the whole bulk of the sam-
tíðarsögur, Þorgils Saga ok Hafliða, ch. 16 (where, moreover, the
ironical intention is clear too), alludes to the inviolability of the þing
(þinghelgrin). What is far more obvious in the samtíðarsögar, with
their ceaseless fights, battles and murders during the alþing sessions
and even in the lögrétta (Prestssaga Guðmundar Góða, ch. 2), is that
the sacred character of this institution was not much felt. In a similar
way, the respect for the tribunals, the authority of which should have
been very old and undisputed, is, in the Sturlung Age, much contested.
In 1234, Bishop Magnús Gizurarson is obliged to forbid people to
carry weapons before tribunals (íslendinga Saga, ch. 99), a fact which
the deplorable habit of hleypa upp dóminum (Þorgils Saga ok Hafliða,
ch. 18; Sturlu Saga, ch. 5) justifies enough.
Now, in the conduct of war or warlike enterprises, we could expect
to find traces of ancient customs.8 Besides practices which do not seem
7 See E. Bull: Folk og Kirke i Middelalderen, Kristiania, 1912, p. 46.
8 See R. Boyer: La guerre en Islande á l’áge des Sturlungar, in Inter-Nord 11,
1971, pp. 184-202.