292 ICELAND : ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 



regarded by Denmark, Avhen it wished to make Iceland a Danish 

 province, but the people of Iceland have ahvays taken a firm stand 

 upon it. 



There never was more than one jarl in Iceland, Gizur Thorvaldsson, 

 who died in 1268. The old code of laws, Gragas, elaborate as the 

 Codex Justinianus, and going beyond it, e. g., in the mutual insurance 

 of each commune against fire and against loss of cattle, was replaced 

 in 1271 b}" a Norwegian code, the Ironside, Jarnsicfa. Two law men 

 (logmenn) were to govern the country, and the Logretta was limited 

 to its judicial functions. The Althing refused to accept the new 

 code, though it was brought from Norway by the greatest author of 

 the latter half of the thirteenth century, Sturla Thordarson. A new 

 code, Jonsbok, Avhich was a compromise code brought by the law man, 

 Jon Einarsson, to Iceland in 1280, was accepted at the Althing of 

 1281, with some alterations. It is called " Jonsbok," after Jon 

 Einarsson, and is still, in parts, the law of Iceland. 



Iceland was divided into " syslas," or counties, administered by 

 sheriffs (syslumenn) appointed by the King, and the place of the 

 local ''things" was taken by bailiffs (hreppstjoris), mainh' con- 

 cerned with the poor law and tax gathering. The estates of the 

 Sturlung family were confiscated by the King. Trade languished, 

 and the black death, in conjunction with great volcanic eruptions, 

 brought Iceland to the verge of ruin. As soon as Norway became 

 united with Denmark through marriage in 1380, the treaty of union 

 was more or less disregarded, and the Icelanders were so broken in 

 spirit that they meekly submitted. 



The fifteenth century is looked upon as the darkest age of Icelandic 

 history. Denmark confined all Iceland trade to the one port of 

 Bergen, in Norway, and the English trade with Iceland, which began 

 about 1412, was carried on in defiance of edicts from Copenhagen. 

 Soon the English buccaneers took the law into their own hands and 

 arrested all Danish and Norwegian officials who tried to prevent their 

 trade. The Icelanders seem to have taken the English side in these 

 quarrels, and about 1130 the two bishops of Iceland were each English- 

 men. At one time Iceland was actually held by the English who built 

 a fort in the south of the island. A number of English words came 

 into the Icelandic language, and are in it to-day. By favoring the 

 Hanseatic traders. Denmark finalW succeeded in ousting English 

 trade from Iceland, but the English fishing fleet, the so-called " Ice- 

 land Fleet," continued to fish for cod and ling on the shores of Ice- 

 land during the whole of the sixteenth centuiy. As late as 1593 

 fifty-five ships sailed for Iceland from Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk 

 alone for this purpose. Henry VIII negotiated with Denmark in 

 1518 and 1535 about the transfer of Iceland, the interests of England 



