298 Norway and the Norwegians 



which had been begun by Sverri, and continued by 

 Hakon Hakonsson. The efforts of these two had been 

 chiefly in the direction of administrative centralisation 

 the efforts of Magnus Lagabsetir were directed towards 

 legal centralisation. Up to now the law had been dif- 

 ferent for different parts of the country. There were 

 four great Things, and each administered its own laws 

 for its own district. That is to say, latterly two of the 

 three districts, those of the Eidsvold Thing and the 

 Borgar Thing, had the same laws and customs, but these 

 differed from those of the other two Thing districts. 



It will be understood that none of these laws — or 

 but very few — were codified ; so that the law admini- 

 stered at the Things was what we should call ' case-law.' 

 The law (according to the old custom, at any rate) was 

 administered for the peasants by the peasants. Gener- 

 ally the most venerable and the most respected bonder 

 was elected for life to be the exponent of the laws and 

 customs of the district. This man was called the law- 

 man (Lagamadhr). His business was to recite from 

 memory the known laws, what formed, in effect, the code 

 of the country, to decide the case-law, and to be a sort of 

 speaker for the local Thing in the presence of the king 

 or of the earl of the district — which is precisely what 

 the speaker of the English Parliament originally was. 

 This peasant-law of the Things did not directly apply 

 to the king or the higher aristocracy, the earls ; but 

 they were bound to respect it, and in the govern- 

 ment of their own estates they were bound by its 

 provisions. 



Across this district law there lay, so to say, a band 

 of church and king law, which had been introduced 



