the “literary eras” of England or Germany, a brilliant period of intellectual life produced and elaborated in its own distinct form of expression a literature superior to any north of the Alps before the Renaissance since the downfall of Old Rome in power, purity, and life.
Settlement. To begin with history, in which we are chiefly concerned with the first and fourth periods of the island's inhabited existence, and first the “settlement.” Shortly after the discovery of Iceland by the Scandinavian, c. 850 (it had long been inhabited by a small colony of Irish Culdees), a stream of immigration set in towards it, which lasted for sixty years, and resulted in the establishment of some 4000 homesteads scattered round the habitable fringe about the great bays and firths.
In this immigration three distinct streams can be traced. (1) About 870-890 four great noblemen from Norway, Ingolf, Ketil Hæng, Skalla-Grim, and Thorolf, settled with their dependants in the south-west of the new found land. (2) In 890-900 there came from the Western Islands Queen Aud, widow of Olaf the White, king of Dublin, preceded and followed by a number of her kinsmen and relations (many like herself being Christians), Helgi Biolan, Biorn the Eastern, Helgi the Lean, Ketil the Foolish, &c., who settled the best land in the island (west, north-west, and north), and founded families who long swayed its destinies. Besides this most important immigration of all there came from the Western Islands a fellowship of vikings seeking a free home in the north. They had colonized the west in the viking times; they had “fought at Hafursfirth,” helping their stay-at-home kinsmen against the centralization of the great head-king, who, when he had crushed opposition in Norway, sailed after these turbulent colonists across the North Sea, and followed up his victory by compelling them to bow to his rule or fly again to fresh haunts whence they could not so easily interfere with his projects. Such were Ingimund the Old, Geirmund Hellskin, Thord Beardie (who had wed St Edmund's grand-daughter), Audun Shackle, Bryniulf the Old, Uni, to whom Harold promised the earldom of the new land if he could make the settlers acknowledge him as king, a hopeless project, and others by whom the north-west, north, and east were almost completely “claimed.” (3) In 900-930 a few more incomers direct from Norway completed the settlement of the south, north-east, and south-east. Among them were Earl Hrollaug (half brother of Hrolf Ganger and of the first earl of Orkney), Hialti, Hrafnkell Frey's priest, and the sons of Asbiorn. Fully three quarters of the land was settled from the west, and among these immigrants there was no small proportion of Irish blood. In 1100 there were 4500 franklins, i.e., about 50,000 souls.
Organization. The unit of Icelandic politics is the homestead with its franklin-owner (buendi), its primal organization the hundred-moot (thing), its tie the goðorð or chieftainship. The chief who had led a band of kinsmen and dependants to the new land, taken a “claim” there, and parcelled it out freely among them, naturally became their leader, presiding as priest at the temple feasts and sacrifices of heathen times, acting as president and speaker of their moot, and as their responsible representative towards the neighbouring chiefs and their clients. He was not a feudal lord nor a local sheriff, for any franklin could change his goðorð when he would, and the rights of “judgment by peers” were in full use; moreover, the office could be bequeathed, sold, divided, or pledged by the possessor; still the goði had considerable power and influence as long as the commonwealth lasted.
At first there was no higher organization, but disputes between neighbouring chiefs and their clients, and uncertainty as to the law, brought about the Constitution of Ulfliot, c. 930, which appointed a central moot for the whole island, the Al-thing, and a speaker to speak a single “law” (principally that followed by the Gula-moot in Norway); the Reforms of Thord Gellir, 964, settling a fixed number of local moots and chieftaincies, dividing the island into four quarters (thus characterized by Ari:—north, thickest settled, most famous; east, first completely settled; south, best land and greatest chiefs; west, remarkable for noble families), to each of which a head-court, the “quarter-court,” was assigned; and the Innovations of Skapti (ascribed in the saga to Nial) the Law-Speaker (d. 1030), who set up a “fifth court” as the ultimate tribunal in criminal matters, and strengthened the community against the chiefs. But here constitutional growth ceased: the law-making body made few and unimportant modifications of custom; the courts were still too weak for the chiefs who misused and defied them; the speaker's power was not sufficiently supported to enable him to be any more than a highly respected lord chief justice, whereas he ought to have become a justiza if anarchy was to be avoided; even the ecclesiastical innovations, while they secured peace for a time, provoked in the end the struggles which put an end to the commonwealth.
Christianity was introduced c. 1000. Tithes were established in 1096, and an ecclesiastical code made c. 1125.
The first disputes about the jurisdiction of the clergy were moved by Gudmund in the 13th century, bringing on a civil war, while the questions of patronage and rights over glebe and mortmainland occupied Bishop Ami and his adversaries fifty years afterwards, when the land was under Norwegian viceroys and Norwegian law. For the civil wars of the 13th century broke down and exterminated the great houses who had monopolized the chieftaincies and abused their power for their own ends; and after violent struggles (in which the Sturlungs of the first generation perished at Orlygstad, 1238, and Reykiaholt, 1241, while of the second generation Thord Kakali was called away by the king in 1250, and Thorgils Skardi slain in 1258) the submission of the island, quarter after quarter, took place in 1262-64, under Gizur's auspices, and the old Common Law was replaced by the New Norse Code “Ironside” in 1271.
The political life and law of the old days is abundantly illustrated in the sagas (especially Eyrbyggia, Hænsa-Thori, Reyk-dæla, Hrafnkell, and Niala), the two collections of law-scrolls (Codex Regius, c. 1235, and Stadarhol's Book, c. 1271), the Libellus, the Liber-fragments, and the Landnamabok of Ari, and the Diplomatarium. K. Maurer has made the subject his own in his Beiträge, Island, Grágás, &c.
The mediæval Icelandic church had two bishoprics, Skalholt (S., W., and E.) 1056, and Holar (N.) 1106, and about 175 parishes (two-thirds of which belonged to the southern bishopric). They belonged to the metropolitan see of Bremen, then to Lund, lastly to Nidaros, 1237. There were several religious foundations: Thingore (founded 1133), Thwera (1155), Hitardale (c. 1166), Kirkby Nunnery (1184), Stad Nunnery (1296), and Saurby (c. 1200) were Benedictine, while Ver (1168), Flatey after Holyfell (1172), Videy (1226), Madderfield Priory (1296), and Skrid Priory (14th century) were Augustinian. The bishops, elected by the people at the Al-thing till 1237, enjoyed considerable power and influence, and were most of them distinguished men; two, Thorlak of Skalholt and John of Holar, were publicly voted saints at the Al-thing after due examination of their claims to that distinction, and one, Gudmund, received the title of “Good” by decree of the bishop and chapter. Full details as to ecclesiastical history will be found in the Bishops' Lives (edited by Dr Vigfusson).
Mode of life. Iceland was not agricultural but pastoral, depending upon flocks and herds for subsistence, for, though rye and other grain would grow in favoured localities, the hay, self-sown, was the only regular crop. In some districts the fisheries and fowling were of importance, but nine-tenths of the population lived by their sheep and cattle, which gave them food, clothing, and such products for export as enabled them to import wood for building, iron for tools, and a few luxuries, as honey, wine, grain for brewing, and foreign clothes, fur, &c. Life on each homestead was regularly portioned out:—out-door occupations fishing, shepherding, fowling, and the important hay-making and fuel-gathering occupying the summer; while in-door business—weaving, tool-making, &c., filled up the long winter. The year was broken by the spring feasts and moots, the great Al-thing meeting at midsummer, the marriage and arval gatherings after the summer, and the long yule feasts at midwinter. There were but two degrees of men, free and unfree, though only the franklins had any political power; and, from the very nature of the life, social intercourse was peculiarly unrestrained and unfettered; goði and thrall lived the same lives, ate the same food, spoke the same tongue, and differed little in clothing or habits. The poorest franklin was the social equal of the proudest chief, and in a few generations the freed man or landless dependant might become their peer in public estimation, provided he got a homestead of his own. The thrall had a house of his own and was rather villein or serf than slave, having rights and a legal price by law. During the heathen days many of the great chiefs passed part of their lives in Norway at the king's court, but after the establishment of Christianity in Iceland they kept more at home, still visiting the Continent, however, for purposes of state, suits with clergy, &c. But the trade was from the first in foreign (Norse) hands almost entirely.
The introduction of a church system brought little change. The great families put their members into orders, and so continued to enjoy the profits of the land which they had given to the church; the priests married and otherwise behaved like the franklins around them in every-day matters, farming, trading, going to law like laymen; so that, in spite of the efforts of the more earnest church reformers, the church was powerless to promote centralization against the feuds and jealousies of the great houses.
Effects of the union and change of law. The old life in the commonwealth was turbulent and anarchic, but free and varied; it produced men of mark, and fostered bravery, adventure, and progress. The great chief's were indeed only greater franklins; but their wealth and comparative luxury gave them leisure and opportunities for culture which raised them as examples and leaders above their fellows; the pride of birth preserved a nobility of feeling and high standard of honour amid much of violence and chicane. But all this now ceased, and there was left but a low dead level of poor peasant proprietors without pride in the past, political interest in the present, or ambition of the future, careless of all save how to live by as little labour as possible, and pay as few taxes as they could to their foreign rulers. The island received a foreign governor (Earl, Hirdstjori, or Stiptamtsmadr as he has been successively called), and was parcelled out into local counties (syslur), administered by sheriffs (syslumadr) appointed by the king. A royal court took the place of the Al-thing courts;
