CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

ICELAND

Jón Viðar Sigurðsson

S

cholarly discussion about the Icelandic Free State (c. 930 – 1262 / 4 ) was up to 1970
focused on the political development (which also includes the debate about the
relationship between the Church and chieftains), the introduction of Christianity, the
source value of the Icelandic family sagas and finally the constitution of the Free State.
Around 1970 , under the influence of social history, cultural history and social anthro-
pology, new topics were introduced in the discussion and there was renewed interest in
some old ones, such as the settlement of disputes, women’s and gender history, political
culture and the role of honour. The discussion about the source value of the Icelandic
family sagas continued, but now from a social anthropological perspective ( Jón Viðar
Sigurðsson 2000 ).

SETTLEMENT PERIOD

Until recently little attention has been paid to the settlement period (c. 870 – 930 ), but
recent archaeological excavations will undeniably throw a new light on this period.
There is general agreement among scholars that Ari fróði’s (‘the learned’) dating of the
first settlement to c. 874 is reliable. Just before the first settlers arrived there was a
volcanic eruption in Iceland and the ash from this eruption has been dated in Green-
land’s glacier to 872 ± 2 , and according to the results from the archaeological
excavations in Iceland there are no traces of a settlement below the ash layer from this
volcanic eruption (Árný E. Sveinbjörnsdóttir et al. 2004 ).
According to the sagas most of the settlers came from Norway and the British
Isles, and many of them brought slaves from the Irish Sea area with them. Recent
DNA studies have confirmed this mixture of people (Agnar Helgason et al. 2001 ).
Landnámabók (the Book of Settlement) lists c. 415 settlers: 404 men and 13 women
(Haraldur Matthíasson 1982 ); it was this group that was in charge of the settlement
process. The majority of the settlers were either wealthy farmers or chieftains; what most
of them had in common was that they owned ships which were large enough to trans-
port people and livestock to Iceland. The period between c. 870 – 930 is usually labelled
landnámsöld, ‘the settlement period’. It is Ari’s statement in Íslendingabók, that all land
was claimed (albyggt) within sixty winters ‘so that there was no further settlement made