Jón Bjarnason Academy - 01.05.1931, Síða 35

The Icelandic Parliament (Althing) and
the Millennial Celebration of 1930
By DR. SVE1NBJ0RN JOHNSON
Professor of Law and Legal Counsel of the University of Illinois;
A.B., A.M., LL.B., University of North Dakota;
LL.D. University of Iceland.
The settlement of Iceland began about the year 874 A.D.
The island when discovered was uninhabited. While the record
shows that some priests from Ireland (Culdee) had lived in
Iceland for a time, they left either shortly before or very
shortly after the settlement commenced.
During the period between 860 and 872 Harald the Fair-
haired of Norway had been engaged in the bitter and bloody
task of subduing all of that country under his personal rule.
His undertaking approximated that of Alfred the Great in
England. The conquest was successful, but the cost was great,
for many of the best men of Norway, including petty kings and
princes, departed and took up their abode in Ireland, Scotland,
Normandy and on various islands in the Atlantic. It is well
known that in the ninth century the Vikings established them-
selves as kings over large areas of Scotland and of Ireland. It
is equally well established that the native population rebelled
against and killed them, or drove them from the country. The
settlers of Iceland came from Scandinavia and also from Ire-
land and Scotland whence they were driven, and the interven-
ing islands. They brought natives as wives and others as
slaves. Except for this admixture of Scotch and Celtic blood
the original settlers were mainly of Norwegian descent.
By 930 the settlement of Iceland seems to have been vir-
tually complete. Before that time, however, the leaders had
seen the need of some sort of governmental organization.
Indeed, the records indicate that it was not very long after the
first settlers arrived that local things sprang up, where rules
of conduct were administered and judgments rendered in
controversies between individuals. Of course, to begin with,
these bodies were little more than tribunals of arbitration to
whom controversies could be submitted, if the parties so de-
sired.
All civil government in Iceland during the period of the
Commonwealth (930—1262) had its roots in certain pagan
practices. The first attempt at organizing society centered
around the pagan temple, called hof in the Sagas. The pro-
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