Lawspeaker

It has its basis in a common Germanic oral tradition, where wise people were asked to recite the law, but it was only in Scandinavia that the function evolved into an office.

He was also responsible for the administration at the thing and for the execution of the decisions, and it was his duty to safeguard the rights and liberties of the people and to speak in their behalf to the king or his representative.

According to the Västgöta Law, the lawspeaker was appointed for life by the yeomen (bönder) of the province from among their number; it was also stipulated that his father should also have been a landowner.

The first named Swedish lawspeaker, if the text is correct, is the Lum recorded in a register of Västergötland lawmen copied by Laurentius Dyakn, a priest in Vidhem, in the 1320s; he must have lived around 1000.

Six nobles and six yeomen would in consultation with two clergymen appoint three men from the jurisdiction among whom the king would select the one he deemed to be most fit.

From then on, the lawspeakers only came from the nobility, and it had turned into a pension, in which a member of the Privy Council of Sweden was selected and received a salary, but had other people taking care of the work.

This privilege was abolished during the Reduction of 1680, after which the lawspeakers were obliged to take care of the work themselves, and there were checks on the appointment of members of the privy council.

In the laws of Magnus VI of Norway (1263–1280), they were given the right to function as judges and to preside at the lagtings (the Norwegian superior courts).

In fact, Grímr Svertingsson's term was cut short, not because of incompetence or illness, but because his voice was too weak for the job.

Apart from his function as a lawsayer and chairman of the court, the lǫgsǫgumaðr had no formal power, but he would often be appointed as an arbitrator in the frequently arising disputes.

Scholars are suspicious of the fact that Úlfljótur's first two successors have been assigned a period in office of exactly 20 summers each, but from Þorkell máni on, the chronology is probably correct; names are given in their modern Icelandic form.