afterwards’, together with the foundation of a general assembly for the whole country c.
930 that marks the end of the settlement period.
The settlers brought with them domestic animals, cattle, sheep, horses, goats and
pigs, but it took some time to build up a stock of domestic animals that was large
enough to sustain the population. In the earliest phase of the settlement, therefore, fish
was the staple food. Consequently we find the highest number of settlers in the Western
Quarter and along the coast. Inner regions became more important than the costal areas
only after the stock of domestic animals became large enough.
The single farm was the main feature of the settlement; there were no villages or
towns developed in medieval Iceland. In the earliest phase of the settlement, settlers
experimented with the location of their farms, so many farms were moved or were
abandoned completely. It was not until the twelfth century that a settlement pattern
which has dominated the Icelandic landscape to modern times was established. The
number of farms in the fourteenth century did not exceed 6 , 000 (Björn Teitsson and
Magnús Stefánsson 1972 ).
The main emphasis after the initial settlement period was on animal husbandry and
some agriculture, with fishing in rivers, lakes and the sea as an additional food source.
The cultivation of crops, especially barley, took place at some major farms all across the
island in the early and high Middle Ages. Most of the production was consumed
domestically. Self-sufficiency was the goal for most households. Not all farms could
produce all the resources they needed, such as iron. We can therefore assume that some
farms specialised in the production of certain products ( Jón Jóhannesson 1956 ; Kristján
Eldjárn 1959 ; Sturla Friðriksson 1982 ; Árný E. Sveinbjörnsdóttir and Sigfús J. Johnsen
1996 ).
Population growth was an important underlying factor for the development of this
new society. Nothing accurate is known about the number of emigrants in the settle-
ment period, but a qualified guess is 10 , 000 (Björn Þorsteinsson 1966 ). If we accept
this number and argue that the growth of the population in Iceland was the same as
elsewhere in western Europe in the period c. 900 – 1300 – that is, a duplication every
c. 200 years – the number of inhabitants was 20 , 000 c. 1100 and 40 , 000 c. 1300 (Björn
Teitsson and Magnús Stefánsson 1972 ).
THE CONSTITUTIONThe settlers were familiar with assembly organisations and according to tradition
assemblies were established in Þórsnes and Kjalarnes before the national assembly at
Þingvellir was founded c. 930. There is agreement among most scholars that the main
elements of the constitution of the Free State, which only the Konungsbók version of
Grágás (c. 1250 ) describes, were introduced at the first assembly meeting (i.e. Maurer
1874 ; Sigurður Nordal 1942 ; Jón Jóhannesson 1956 ). At the time the General
Assembly (alþing) was established there were thirty-six chieftaincies (goðorð); later, in
c. 965 , when the country was divided into quarters and the quarter courts were intro-
duced, three new chieftaincies were established in the Northern Quarter. In order to
maintain the balance between the quarters, the Eastern, Southern and Western Quarters
each got three ‘additional’ chieftains (sg. goði), who were nominated by the nine chief-
tains in each of these three quarters. The total number of chieftaincies represented at the
General Assembly was thus forty-eight, or twelve from each quarter.
–– Jón Viðar Sigurðsson ––