Medieval Scandinavian law

The court assembly, the thing, used the law and heard witnesses to rule whether the accused was guilty or not.

This system was extremely intricate and the fines themselves, singularly a "mulct",[4] were also varied according to the social status of the accused and/or the victim.

However, as long as the courts were not made aware of the crime, it could go unpunished or was settled outside of legal bounds by payment.

In Chapter 46 of the saga, the arbitrator and his jury facilitate the following settlement: It was agreed that the wound Thord Bling received at Alfta Fjord should cancel the one given to Thorodd Snorrason.

Mar Hallvardsson's wound and the blow Steinthor gave Snorri the Priest were said to equal the deaths of the three men killed at Alfta Fjord.

The killing of one of Snorri's men at Alfta Fjord was matched against the unlawful assault Thorleif Kimbi had committed by starting the fight.

[5]In 1117, the Althing decided that all the laws should be written down and this was accomplished at Hafliði Másson's farm over that winter and published the following year.

[6] As with the other Scandinavian countries in the Medieval Age, Norway was governed by a system of þings at which the numerous kings would convene to settle legal disputes.

Medieval Norway developed four ancient regional assemblies: Frostating, Gulating, Eidsivating and Borgarting.

Bjorn, son of Ketil Flat-Nose, was declared an outlaw by a thing assembled by King Harald in the very beginning of the Eyrbyggja Saga.

Another copy, the Codex Runicus, was written entirely in runic lettering around 1300 and is now held at the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

The oldest known copy of the Jutlandic Law, Codex Holmiensis 37 is currently owned by the Swedish Royal Library.

[10] The earliest written law from what is now Sweden seems to be the Forsaringen, an iron ring from the door for the church of Forsa in Hälsingland, which carries a runic inscription, long thought to be from the High Middle Ages but more recently dated to the ninth or tenth century.

A stipulation that "no man may inherit while he sits in Greece", for instance, would have been useful during the Viking Age when many Swedes served in the Varangian Guard but less so when the laws were codified, at a time when such service had all but stopped.

Christianity is thought to have come to the Scandinavian peoples initially in the reign of Charlemagne, but did not take hold until the 11th or 12th century, when it was made the official religion of Norway by Olaf Tryggvason.

The yearly þing ritual continued after the Christianization of Scandinavia, especially in Iceland where it was a social gathering, not merely a court.