Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1970, Page 166

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On legal terms in Fareyinga saga
Looking back over this discussion we may perhaps yet
recognize one valid piece of information about the Faroese
past. This is the description of Gilli as Iggsogumaðr, certainly
by Snorri, probably by the author of Færeyinga saga. The term
is of course well known as the title of the elected president of
the Icelandic alpingi. In Norway and Sweden, on the other
hand, important legal functionaries were called Iggmenn, a
title introduced in Iceland after Jónsbók53. The author of the
saga (let alone Snorri) knew enough about Norwegian affairs
to know that Iggsggumaðr was not appropriate in a description
of Norwegian conditions, and he could easily have applied
the un-Icelandic Iqgmaðr to Gilli if he wished to maintain the
foreign atmosphere. As it is, Iqgsogumaðr is emphatically used
and it must have been felt there was good reason for it. The
best reason would be that it was regarded as the right Faroese
term. This would accord with the theory that the name Iqg-
sqgumaðr was more widely used in early Scandinavia than is
attested by the direct witness of our sources. In Sweden
laghsagha was used of the orally delivered law and of the
district in which the law applied, and in Norway Iqgsaga was
similarly used of a jurisdiction; it was also a law-man’s func-
tion at segja Iqg, both to pronounce what was law in a given
instance and to rehearse the laws in general54. It is thus far
from likely that Iqgsqgumaðr was an Icelandic neologism. In
this case we may well believe that Gilli Iqgsqgumaðr came to
the author ready-made in the Faroese traditions that lie, how-
ever remotely, behind the fascinating and perplexing saga we
now possess.
58 NgL V s. v. logmaðr. The Iqgmenn in Norway originally formed a
kind of committee at the assemblies but seem to have acquired individual
status by about 1200. Cf. K. Helle, Norge blir en stat (1964), 126—7;
P. G. Foote and D. M. Wilson, The Viking Achievement (1970), 90—2.
54 Poul Johs. Jørgensen, Dansk Retshistorie (3. Opl., 1965), 19—21;
E. Wessán, Svenskt lagsprđk (1965), 14, 16—7.