Jón Bjarnason Academy - 01.05.1931, Síða 37

prietor of the temple was called a godi, and it naturally resulted
that these men became the community leaders, and the hof
a community meeting place. These chiefs undertook to adjust
disputes, and they became the cornerstone of the new state.
The Althing, or national parliament, was founded in 930
and is the oldest legislative assembly in the world. In one
respect this body occupies a unique place in the development
of the State, for unlike the moots in other countries, which
slowly and laboriously evolved into national organizations, the
Icelandic Althing was really founded by men who deliberately
set out to build a governmental structure. The island had been
settled less than sixty years before; while there had been local
things to take care of local needs, there had not probably been
a national body or thing until 930, although there is some con-
troversy on this point. Careful preparations and intensive
study preceded the organization of the Althing. Like the
American republic in 1789, the Icelandic structure sprang al-
most full-blown from the brains of its founders.
Divine Service Preceding the opening of the Icelandic Parliamentary
Celebration 1930, conducted by Bishop Jon Helgason, D.D.,
in Almannagja
One of the great men of Iceland went to Norway about
the year 927, where he spent three years studying the Nor-
wegian legal system; in the meantime his foster-brother
travelled on horseback over Iceland in search of a suitable place
for the national body to convene and transact the public busi-
ness. When the law-giver, Crlfljot, returned with a complete
code of laws and a scheme for the organization of a national
government, he found that his foster-brother had located the
meeting place of the Althing on a picturesque plain in the
southern part of Iceland, which is known in history as
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