Icelandic Commonwealth - Court System

Court System

Iceland was divided into four administrative regions called fjörðungar ("fourthings"). Each of these was ruled by nine goðar. The Althing was made up of the four Quarter Courts (fjórðungsdómur). This judicial body of Iceland consisted of 36 judges, each appointed by one of the goðar. These courts tried individual cases and served as a higher judicial authority to the regional courts. The rulings of the quarter judges had to be virtually unanimous. If only six of the judges disagreed, then the case was deadlocked and dismissed. In 1005, this problem was solved by the creation of a Fifth Court, an appeals court based on a simple majority. Once a court decided a party was guilty, however, it had no executive authority to carry out a sentence. Instead, enforcement of a verdict became the responsibility of the injured party or his family. Penalties often included financial compensation or outlawry. However, these were considered by some to be insufficient penalties and the Althing was only moderately successful at stopping feuds. According to Magnus Magnusson, the courts were "an uneasy substitute for vengeance.”

On the other hand, historian Birgir Solvason states that Icelandic society was "more peaceful and cooperative than its contemporaries"; in England and Norway, by contrast, "the period from about 800 to 1200 is a period of continuous struggle; high in both violence and killings." At the Conversion of Iceland in 1000, the Althing outlawed public celebration of pagan rituals and decreed that in order to prevent an invasion, all Icelanders must be baptized. Roderick Long writes: "Byock contrasts the prolonged and violent civil strife which attended Christianization in Norway with its relatively swift and peaceful Icelandic analogue. Icelanders treated the conflict between pagans and Christians as a feud, to be resolved like any other feud – by arbitration. The arbitrator decided in favor of Christianity, and that was that." In 1117 the law code of the Icelandic Commonwealth was put into writing, becoming known as the Gray Goose Laws.