Norsemen Without a King An Analysis of Executive Authority in the Icelandic Commonwealth

James Cross

Date of Award

2007

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Benes, Carrie

Keywords

Medieval, Iceland, Executive Authority, Medieval Law

Area of Concentration

History

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the effects the Icelandic Commonwealth's (930-1262) unique executive-less government on Iceland as a whole. The thesis accomplishes this through a comparison with contemporary Norway which, while culturally similar, had a strong executive in the form of a king. To this end, it makes extensive reference to various Icelandic family sagas, Icelandic and Norwegian chronicles, and Icelandic and Norwegian law codes. There are two primary conclusions drawn from this analysis. First, the executive-less nature of the Commonwealth resulted in a system under which the Icelanders only enforced laws with clear victims. This allowed legally-restricted groups such as women to flourish despite the letter of the law. However, it also resulted in several dire consequences such as allowing unsavory Icelanders to slay the kinless without legal retribution. Second, though the executive-less system was not directly responsible for the eventual subjugation of the Commonwealth to the Norwegian crown, it did facilitate it by leaving the Icelanders poorly prepared to defend against massive power consolidation of a few private individuals and the Church.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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