Archaeologia Islandica - 01.01.2011, Qupperneq 44

ORRI VÉSTEINSSON
Figure 1. The distribution of pagan burials in Iceland. Based on Eldjárn 2000, with data on more
recent jinds supplied by Adolf Friðriksson (pers. comm.).
by the fírst national census in 1703
(Manntal á Islandi). These data provide a
basis on which to build but they are
obviously problematic in that they
postdate the pagan period by seven
centuries. In some regions at least there
are indications that significant changes in
the number of settlements ocurred in the
interim, suggesting that the 1690s figures
cannot be used without qualification as
proxy data for the Viking age. Earlier
figures are available; tax-paying farmers
were counted by region and quarter in
1311 (DIII, 373-75; IV, 9-10; XII, 20-21)
and in his Islendingabók Ari provides
numbers of assembly-tax paying farmers
by quarter, said to have been gathered in
preparation for the establishment of a new
diocese at Hólar in 1106 (ÍF I, 23). Both
these sets of figures clearly suffer ffom
lack of precision, especially Ari’s which is
all in rounded himdreds. Serious doubt
may be cast over the organisational ability
of the Icelandic church around 1100 to
collect this sort of data in anything
resembling an accurate manner. The
figures from 1100 should therfore be
regarded as an informed estimate,
accurate enough for its stated purpose - to
split the existing diocese in two, requiring
assessments of the adequacy of revenues
for the new see at Hólar as well as of the
scale of the loss of revenue to Skálholt -
but not as exact numbers based on actual
counting. In addition to the imprecision,
which cannot be quantified, the 1100
figures only cover those householders
who owned the minimum amount of
property to be liable to pay assembly-tax.
It is unknowable how many households
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