60 



DR. ,10N STEFANSSON_, PH.D.^ ON ICELAND : 



Wars of the Roses in England (1465-85) are a close 

 parallel to these wars in Iceland. 



The Kings of I^orway had always held that the Icelanders, 

 as Norwegian colonists, ought to own their supremacy. Olaf 

 Tryggvason and Saint Olaf had, in vain, laboured to win the 

 Icelander.^ over to this view. King Hakon Hakonson (1217- 

 63) now suborned chief against chief. The great house of the 

 Stiu'hiugs had perished at the battle of Orlygsstad, 1238, and 

 Snorri StuHuson, the greatest historian and writer that Iceland 

 has produced, was murdered at lieykjaholt in 1241 at the King's 

 instigation. The one leading man of the family left alive, 

 Thord Kakali, was called away to Xorway. By bribes, by 

 persuasion, by sending Icelandic emissaries through the island, 

 by winning over the most powerful chief in Iceland, Glzur 

 Tliorvcddsson, it came about that the Icelanders, of their own 

 free will, in solemn Parliament, made a Treaty oi Union w^ith 

 the King of Norway in which they accepted his supremacy : 

 the South, West and North Quarters at midsummer 1262, one 

 year before the battle of Largs, when Norway lost her colonies 

 in the West, the powerlul family of the Oddaveijar in 1263, and 

 the East Quarter in 1264, the date of the summoning of the 

 first Parliament of England by Simon de Montfort. 



The Treaty of Uiiioit, as ])assed l)y the Althing, enacted that 

 ay«r/ shouhi represent the King of Norway in Iceland, that the 

 Icelanders should keep their own laws and keep the power of 

 taxatio]! in their hands, that they should have all the same 

 rights as Norwegians in Norway, that at least six tradmg ships 

 should sail from Norway to Iceland annually, that " if tliis 

 treaty, in the estimation of the best men (in Iceland) is broken, 

 the Icelanders shall be free of all obligations towards the King 

 of Norway." This treaty is the Magna Cliarla, the charter of 

 liberty of Iceland. It has sometimes been in abeyance, but has 

 never been abolished. It has sometimes been disregarded by 

 Denmark, wlien it wished to make Iceland a Danish province ; 

 but the people of Iceland liave always 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, Grdcfds, 

 eliiborate as the Codex rJ ustinianus, and going beyond it, cj/., in 

 tile mauial insurance of each commune against lire and against 

 loss of cattle, was replaced in 1271 by a Norwegian Code, the 

 Ironsi<le, J;irnsiSa. Two law men {logmcnn) were to govern the 

 country and the LogrUta was limited to its judicial functions. 

 Tlie Althing refused to accept the new Cocle, though it was 



