ICELAND: ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 291 



Avas an outburst of literature such as the world had not seen since 

 the downfall of Rome. 



By degrees the chieftaincies, go5or6s, Avhich passed not only by 

 inheritance, but also by gift or sale, came into the hands of a few 

 great families. In consequence some chiefs became masters of large 

 districts, and, like feudal lords, rode to the Althing with an armed 

 body of retainers, numbered by hundreds. The old blood feuds 

 became little wars conducted by armies that engaged in battles. 

 Disputes about the jurisdiction of the church jirovoked interference 

 by the Metropolitan See of Drontheim, which appointed the two 

 Icelandic bishoj^s of Holar and Skalholt. Internecine civil wars, 

 lasting through the first half of the thirteenth century, exterminated 

 some of the great families who had monopolized the chieftaincies. 

 The "Wars of the Roses in England (1465-1485) are a close parallel 

 to these wars in Iceland. 



The kings of Norway had always held that the Icelanders, as Nor- 

 wegian colonists, ought to own their supremacy. Olaf Tryggvason 

 and St. Olaf had in vain labored to win the Icelanders over to this 

 view. King Hakon Hakonson (12l7-126f3) now suborned chief 

 against chief. The great house of the Sturlungs had perished at the 

 battle of Orlygsstad, 1238, and Snorri Sturluson, the greatest his- 

 torian and writer that Iceland has produced, was murdered at Reyk- 

 jaholt in 1241 at the King's instigation. The one leading man of 

 the famil}' left alive, Thord Kakali, was called away to Norway. 

 By bribes, by persuasion, by sending Icelandic emissaries through 

 the island, l)y winning over the most powerful chief in Iceland, 

 Gizur Thorvaldsson, it came about that the Icelanders, of their own 

 free Avill, in solemn parliament, made a treaty of union with the 

 King of Norway in which they accepted his supremacy; the south, 

 west, and noi'th qiuirters at midsummer 1262, one year before the 

 battle of Largs, when Norway lost her colonies in the west; the 

 powerful family of the Oddaverjar in 1263, and the east quarter in 

 1264, the date of the summoning of the first Parliament of England 

 by Simon de Mont fort. 



The treaty of union, as passed by the Althing, enacted that a jarl 

 should represent the King of Norway in Iceland ; that the Icelanders 

 should keep their own laws and keep the power of taxation in their 

 hands; that they should have all the same rights as Norwegians in 

 Norway ; that at least six trading ships should sail from Norway to 

 Iceland annually ; that " if this treaty, in the estimation of the best 

 men (in Iceland) is broken, the Icelanders shall be free of all obli- 

 gations toward the King of Norway." This treaty is the Magna 

 Charta, the charter of liberty of Iceland. It has sometimes been in 

 abeyance, but has never been abolished. It has sometimes been dis- 



