288 ICELAND: ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 



which was a republic for about four centuries and during that time 

 produced one of the great literatures of the world, which is larger 

 in area than Ireland by one-fifth, and which is only 450 miles dis- 

 tant from the nearest point of the northwest coast of Scotland, Cape 

 Wrath. This is Iceland, fully one-half of whose settlers, in tho 

 ninth and tenth centuries, came from the northern parts of the Brit- 

 ish Isles — Scotland, Ireland, the Hebrides, and Orkney — and were 

 joartly Norse and parth' Gaelic in blood. 



Fewer still are aware that the long constitutional struggle of Ice- 

 land is at an end, Denmark having conceded all its demands. To 

 understand the present stage of this question it is necessary to tell 

 the history of the past. 



Iceland was settled and colonized in the years 870-930, partly by 

 Norwegian chieftains who left Norway because they would not sub- 

 mit to King Harold Fairhair, and partly by the kinsmen of these 

 chieftains and by others from the northern parts of the British Isles. 

 We possess the record and genealogy of about 5,000 of the most 

 prominent of them in the Landndmaboc^ or Book of Settlement. No 

 other nation possesses a similar full record of its beginnings. 



A republic or commonwealth, with a constitution and an elaborate 

 code of laws, was established and lasted till A. D. 1262-1264, four 

 centuries if reckoned from the settlement — the longest-lived of repub- 

 lics, Rome alone excepted. 



The chieftains, go6is, who presided not oxAy at meetings but at 

 temple feasts and sacrifices, and were thus the temporal and spiritual 

 heads of their dependents, sent Ulfliot to Norway to inquire into the 

 laws and make a constitution for Iceland. He accomplished it in 

 three years. According to this, in 930, a central Parliament for all 

 Iceland, the Althing, was established at Thingvellir, in southwest 

 Iceland, and a " law speaker " was appointed to " speak the law." 

 In 964 the number of chieftaincies, go&r6s, was fixed at 89, 9 for 

 each of the four quarters into which the island was divided, except 

 the north quarter, which was allowed 12. The Althing, as a court 

 of appeal, acted through four courts, one for each quarter. There 

 was also a fifth court, instituted in A. D. 1004, which exercised 

 jurisdiction in cases where the other courts failed. For legislative 

 purposes the Althing acted through a committee of 144 men, only 

 one-third of whom, viz, the 39 go6is and their 9 nominees, bad the 

 right to vote. The 9 nominees were chosen by the go6is of the south, 

 west, and east quarters, three by each quarter, to give each of these 

 quarters the same number of men in the committee as the north 

 quarter had. Each of these 48 men then appointed Iavo assessors to 

 advise him, one to sit behind him, the other to sit in front of him, 

 so that he could readily seek their advice. Thus the committee of 



