There can be little doubt that the rich and varied secular literary works that flowed from the pens of the writers of medieval Iceland in their vernacular tongue can only be explained against a background of a people with a stock of tales to tell about the ancient gods and the heroes of the Viking Age, the kings of northern Europe, and Icelandic chieftains of earlier centuries. We can also suppose that poets and others interested in poetry cultivated the art of reciting lays in the simple eddic meters about the Norse gods and Germanic heroes, and of memorizing the more complex court poetry—the drápur, flokkar, and occasional verses that the sagas tell us were composed by named skalds in earlier times and taught to their contemporaries for oral preservation (or even inscribed in runes), some of this verse going well back to the Viking Age. And beyond this, the oral tradition the saga writers were familiar with would have encompassed a wide and miscellaneous range of other learning, such as genealogical and legal lore.

So far so good. But here the consensus breaks down and the questions start to arise: How is it possible to investigate this oral tradition? And what is the relationship between this tradition and the written texts we find in manuscripts of the Middle Ages and later? The early history of writing in Icelandic can be established with a fair degree of certainty: we can assume that some Icelandic texts of relevance to the Church found their way onto parchment quite soon after the conversion; the written recording of the laws was instituted in the winter of 1117-8 at Breiðabólstaður in Vesturhóp in northern Iceland; Ari fróði (‘the Wise’) Þorgilsson wrote his short history of Iceland, Íslendingabók (‘Book of the Icelanders’), some time during the years 1122-33; possibly around the same time, work began on the collection of information on the settlement claims and genealogies of the original settlers of the country, work that was eventually to lead to the various versions of Landnámabók (‘Book of Settlements’) that we know from the 13th century and later; and some time in the period 1125-75 the so-called ‘First Grammarian’ produced his Fyrsta málfrœðiritgerðin (‘First Grammatical Treatise’) with the aim of adapting the Latin alphabet to the needs of the Norse language. To justify his work, the author pointed out that, with a standardized alphabet, it would be easier ‘at rita ok lesa, sem nú tíðisk ok á þessu landi, bæði lǫg ok áttvísi eða þýðingar helgar, eða svá þau in spakligu frœði er Ari Þorgilsson hefir á bœkr sett af skynsamligu viti’ (‘to write and read, as is now the custom in this country too, both laws and genealogies, or exegetical writings, as well as the erudite lore that Ari Þorgilsson has set down in books with reason and intelligence’) (cf. The First Grammatical Treatise, ed. Hreinn Benediktsson 1972:208).

This passage from the First Grammatical Treatise is our main source for the earliest days of literacy in Iceland in the 12th century and shows that, as might be expected, the first products were law books, genealogies, and vernacular religious writings, together with various other types of information held to be of special importance to society. We know that some time after this people started to record secular historical material and poetry, and it is clear from the burgeoning of the kings’ sagas late in the 12th century and beyond that the writers were able to tap into a rich reservoir of oral sources. Little by little, authors added to the sparse written records that already existed and, chiefly between 1190 and 1220, produced longer and longer sagas by expanding them with new material that does not appear to come from earlier written books. Theodore M. Andersson 1985:221) expressed it thus:

The oral tradition of poetry, stories, and ancient learning kept alive a fund of information about people and events that went all the way back to the settlement period, information that was held to be reliable regardless of whether preserved orally or in books, at least up until around 1300—as evidenced by the fact that even this late Haukr Erlendsson was still expanding his version of Landnámabók with new material for which we know of no written source (Jóhannesson 1941:52-3, 175-203). There can be no doubt that the edda poems and skaldic verse were also preserved by memory, however little is known of the actual conditions of their preservation and performance. The same may be said of the legal and genealogical lore and the Viking Age tales that could still be heard told at the time when the legendary sagas (fornaldarsögur) came to be written down. All this had churned about in popular memory over many centuries and undergone the whole range of modification, loss and accretion that inevitably accompanies such preservation.

As a general account of conditions, this is all fairly uncontroversial. There is, however, much less unanimity when it comes to individual works and their relationships with oral tradition. Differing ideas about the oral tradition behind the family sagas in the written form in which we know them were discussed in the Introduction, but the problem extends to many other written works. Snorri Sturluson, for example, could never have written his Edda if some kind of information on the ancient gods and the myths in which they appear had not still been current on people’s lips in the 13th century. On this everyone is agreed, though views differ fundamentally on the nature and form of this information: Did Snorri have only odd verses and unconnected fragments of poems preserved piecemeal to go on and use these as ‘sources’ to ‘create’ myths that conformed with the learned ideas he had acquired from books? Or did he have access to a coherent body of knowledge still preserved orally in an organized and structured form? And what can we say about the state of the oral poetic tradition in the middle years of the 13th century, after Snorri had compiled his Edda and Heimskringla and the saga of the poet, farmer, and viking Egill Skallagrímsson had first appeared in written form? On this last question scholars have had little to say beyond general comments on the decline of the skaldic art in the 13th century. But all these questions are highly pertinent and need to be faced if we are to provide a reasoned account of how much it is possible to say or know about an oral tradition that no one doubts lay somewhere behind the written works that have come down to us.

It is a major step in the history of any culture when written books take over from human memory as the main repository for essential information. This step was relatively drawn out in Iceland. The age of writing took about 200 years to establish itself fully, from around 1100 to around 1300, in the sense that writing came little by little to dominate all the areas of knowledge to which it might be applied. So far as we know, no secular books at all were written in Iceland in the first century of Christianity, after the year 1000; during these years writing seems to have remained the preserve of the Church. The situation changes early in the 12th century with the codification of the laws, and after this writing comes to extend its influence from one area to the next. But even 200 years on writing had not entrenched itself so firmly that people inevitably turned to books rather than oral tradition when searching for reliable information, not if we judge by lawman Haukr’s redaction of Landnámabók, compiled around 1300. In other words, even this late it was still felt possible to add to the information already to be found in books by tapping into information available only from oral sources. The only possible source for Haukr’s addenda is oral tradition (unless he made them up himself), which tells us that this tradition was still held to be a reliable source on an equal footing to the written word—though of course the fact that something is considered to be reliable says nothing about whether it actually is reliable. Eventually, inevitably, writing won out. But it is worth asking whether this shift in dominion over knowledge, from the memories of learned men to the written page, was accomplished entirely without friction or controversy.

The power of the Church was built upon faith in the written word, and to start with written culture extended only to matters of the spirit. The general system of education and the secular forms of government remained untouched by the technological innovation of book culture. Children and young people would have continued to assimilate the learning and ethical values of society from stories and poems handed down orally from earlier times, and the lawspeakers continued to act as keepers of the law as they always had, to recite it aloud at the Alþingi, and to adjudicate on points of dispute without reference to written books.

Goody (1986:127-70) provides a general discussion of the kinds of changes that occur when oral laws are given written form, with particular reference to the experience of the British colonial rulers in Nigeria when recording the genealogies and origin tales used by the locals when settling disputes. The British attitude was that it might be useful to have this information set down incontrovertibly in writing. But when this attitude was put to the test forty years on, the locals vehemently refused to accept that the written records were correct, saying that they themselves were the better judges of how things stood. The experience was similar in Ghana. In both cases the changes in the oral tradition reflected events in the ‘pasts’ of the local peoples, social changes that had occurred since the first written recording of the information (Goody and Watt 1968:32-3). Contemporary social groups can in a similar fashion express their conflicting interests with contradictory and inconsistent myths (Leach 1967:264-278).

We can assume that the position of lawspeaker conferred power and prestige on its holder. But this power and prestige was based not on a book, as happened within the Church, but on knowledge that the lawspeaker had had to acquire from the lips of other wise men. It should not be forgotten that a working knowledge of the law was essential to every chieftain who engaged in litigation (see Meulengracht Sørensen 1993:110). We should also never underestimate the importance of rhetoric and eloquence in a society that lacked writing and, out of political and social necessity, used stories and poetry as a kind of knowledge bank. In such circumstances, power and influence generally go hand in hand with linguistic ability, as shown by Eric Havelock (1963:115-30). Havelock subjected the functions of the Homeric poems in Greek society to close scrutiny, particularly Plato’s attitude to ‘poetry’ in The Republic. Havelock came to the conclusion that Plato’s animosity toward poetry was only explicable by assuming that Plato was here referring to the function of traditional poetry as the central medium for the propagation of knowledge and ethical values. In Iceland we have examples from the Sturlungar clan in the 13th century of men who acted as lawspeakers but were also prominent as secular authors and poets, i.e. men who managed, with conspicuous success, to combine familiarity with traditional oral lore (laws, poems, genealogies, and stories) with accomplishments in the field of writing.

In light of what has been said above, there is in fact no compelling reason to suppose that it came as a relief to the lawspeakers to have the law in written form. On the contrary, they may well have been proud of their knowledge and looked upon the oral exercise and learning of the law as an essential part in the training of young lawmen. The tithe laws may be considered a special case here: these were established in 1096-7 during the lawspeakership of Markús Skeggjason and were in all probability written from the very outset since the initiative behind their introduction came from the Church itself. Other procedures would thus probably have applied to the tithe laws than to the traditional laws.

Sturla Þórðarson’s history of the period, Íslendinga saga (Sturlunga saga 183-90), describes the rise of the three Sturlusons, Þórðr, Sighvatr, and Snorri, following the death of their father in 1183. At the point where they are introduced into the saga they are already grown men. The rise is portrayed as having occurred largely through enthusiastic involvement in litigation. The two older brothers are well set financially to begin with and strengthen their positions through prudent marriages. They then adopt a policy of intervention in minor disputes among their client farmers whose legal ramifications bring them face to face with other chieftains. Þórðr, for instance, is incensed at his failure to hang a thief while on a trip to the baths in Sælingsdalur, and then prosecutes a case for damages incurred in local disputes arising from the collection of brushwood and a scandalous case of womanizing in Reykjardalur in Borgarfjörður. Sighvatr comes to prominence by preparing a case for manslaughter at the Alþingi against a descendant of the lawspeaker Markús Skeggjason; the chieftains take the view that this is a man of no significance and decide to sacrifice him in the interests of expediency rather than incur the enmity of Sighvatr. Meanwhile, Snorri, the third and youngest, returns from Oddi without a penny to his name and has to marry for money. By the time he is twenty he has become embroiled in a major dispute between powerful chieftains, the Oddaverjar on the one hand and Sigurðr Ormsson on the other. The scenario as depicted in Íslendinga saga elevates Snorri to the national arena, drawing a distinction between him and his brothers. Snorri avoids getting involved in litigation on behalf of his clients independently and without support, in the manner of petty local chieftains like his brothers; instead he builds up a web of alliances in Borgarfjörður among the followers of the great chieftain Jón Loftsson, enabling him to stand up against the powerful Svínfellingar and their allies the Ásbirningar (as well as his own brother Sighvatr).

Snorri’s part in these disputes can hardly be explained other than in the light of his fosterage at Oddi and the links he forged there with Jón Loftsson and his son Sæmundr. But Snorri enjoyed a further advantage over his brothers—his book learning, which was to prove extremely valuable to the entire family, in particular to his brothers, whose political careers were at this time taking off in earnest, even if they did not always see eye to eye. Sighvatr’s rise in Eyjafjörður in the north of Iceland, for instance, coincides with the lawspeakership of Styrmir, one of Snorri’s circle, and Snorri’s nephews (Sturla Sighvatsson, and Sturla and Óláfr Þórðarson) all spent time with Snorri at Reykjaholt and clearly benefited from the education they received there at his hands.

After the chapters in Íslendinga saga dealing with the rise of the Sturlusons comes a section known as ‘Haukdœlaþáttr.’ As mentioned above, between the conversion and the 13th century the Haukdœlir had acquired considerable influence through their connections with the bishopric of Skálholt. Their power appears to have grown hand in hand with that of the Church. Here, too, the development suggests an increasing role for book culture in national politics, epitomized by the lawbook now kept at Skálholt and used in place of the lawspeaker’s memory as final arbiter in disputes of law.

It thus appears that the families who wielded most power in the later years of the 12th century and on into the 13th were connected with the Church and book culture in different ways. The Haukdœlir had been closely associated with the see of Skálholt since its inception and had allies in the north in the Húnrǫðlingar, the family of Hafliði Másson. Well on into the 13th century many of the incumbents of both bishoprics, Skálholt in the south and Hólar in Eyjafjörður in the north, were either members of the Haukdœlir clan or had close links with it. The Sturlungar, on the other hand, were little associated with the Church, if we leave aside Þórðr and Snorri’s support for Bishop Guðmundr Arason throughout his interminable disputes. It is hard to judge how devout and orthodox the Sturlungar were in an ecclesiastical sense, but they were undeniably considerably more bookish than the general run, at least once Snorri had returned home from Oddi to Borgarfjörður bringing his literacy and learning with him.

Our information on the power groupings of the late 12th and 13th centuries is thus good. But what of the 11th and early 12th centuries? Who were the most powerful families on the political scene in this earlier period? And what means do we have to find out?

As is well attested, from the very beginnings of Christianity in the country the Icelandic chieftains exerted great influence over the Church. The Church thus enjoyed the patronage of the most powerful people in the country (as opposed to, at this early stage, there being any question of influence being acquired through connections to the Church). The now-Christianized traditional priests (goði, pl. goðar) had churches built on their lands and took undisputed charge of them up until the second half of the 12th century, when Bishop Þorlákr Þórhallson asserted the Church’s claim over their jurisdiction (thereby incurring the enmity of the powerful Oddaverjar led by Jón Loftsson). People endowed their local churches with lands in return for retaining use of the land itself, control of tenancy rights, and agreement that control over the church and its revenues remained in the family (Stefánsson 1975:89, 2000:206-16). The first bishop of Skálholt, Ísleifr Gizurarson, was the nephew of Skafti Þóroddsson, lawspeaker 1004-30, and Ísleifr’s descendants and relations included a number of highly regarded figures in Icelandic society: his son Gizurr Ísleifsson succeeded him as bishop of Skálholt; Hafliði Másson, the leading light behind the move to make a written record of the law, was the son-in-law of Ísleifr’s son Teitr; and the first 12th-century lawspeaker we know about in any detail, Gizurr Hallsson (lawspeaker 1181-1200), was Ísleifr’s great-grandson and a leading representative of the Haukdœlir. Hafliði Másson also had connections with the northern bishopric of Hólar, since the priest Illugi Bjarnason, having endowed the see with his patrimony, moved to Hafliði at Breiðabólstaður and ‘hvílir hans líkami þar’ (‘his body rests there’), as it says in Laurentius saga (3).

We might perhaps expect some kind of disruption in social stratification accompanying the introduction and spread of writing. Many parallel cases can be cited from various parts of the world. For instance, in the former British colonies in West Africa, literacy provided a means of accessing positions of authority that had formerly been the monopoly of certain families; this resulted in a period of rapid social mobility until new class boundaries became established (Goody 1986:113-9). Something very similar happened in Iceland during the mass migration to Reykjavík after the Second World War; general public education, social changes and the new geographic environment provided opportunities for children from the impoverished families of farmers and fishermen to advance themselves in ways that had previously been inconceivable.

The question then arises of why some of the most powerful and highly regarded men of the 11th and 12th centuries came to be held of such little note when we reach the 13th that their names are conspicuously absent from the genealogies found in books reflecting the outlook of the dominant families of this later period. We know that two leading families alternated in the post of lawspeaker throughout most of the 13th century; we know nothing about any such families or interest groups behind the lawspeakers of earlier times. By examining what the records have to say about these earlier lawspeakers, how they are introduced and how their genealogies are presented, we can perhaps extract some indirect evidence of groupings that competed for power at the time when the new technique of writing was taking over functions that had previously been the province of oral practitioners. At the same time it is also worth seeing whether there is anything in the sources that might allow us to classify the lawspeakers according to whether or not they are likely to have embraced the new technology, or perhaps show any particular allegiance to the traditional ways.

Ari fróði Þorgilsson’s Íslendingabók is our oldest and best source of information on the lawspeakers from the earliest days up to the time of its composition in the third decade of the 12th century. From what Ari says about them we can attempt to build up an idea of whether he links any of them together or associates them with particular power interests, such as particular families, the Church, or even regions of the country.

Ari also specifies the regional origins of some of the leading chieftains at the time of the conversion: Hallr ‘á Síðu’ (from Síða in the extreme south); Hjalti Skeggjason ‘ýr Þjórsárdali’ (from Þjórsárdalur in the southern lowlands); and Gizurr inn hvíti (‘the White’) son of Teitr son of Ketilbjǫrn ‘frá Mosfelli’ (from Mosfell in Grímsnes in the southern lowlands). The apparent emphasis on where people came from indicates that their region of origin was considered important (just as in modern Iceland), though it is difficult from such limited material to draw broader conclusions about any legally sanctioned distribution of power between regions.

Skafti Þóroddsson and his successors. Skafti Þóroddsson is the first lawspeaker who is identified not by place of origin but by his relationship to his predecessors. Ari also has more to say about his actions in office than he has about any other lawspeaker, notably his severity in the matter of punishments and fines imposed on chieftains, something that is not mentioned in other sources.

Ari provides no information on the families or origins of the subsequent lawspeakers: Steinn Þorgestsson, three summers (1031-1033); Þorkell Tjǫrvason, twenty summers (1034-1053); and Gellir Bǫlverksson, nine summers (1054-1062). These bare details are followed by an account of the first bishops, Ísleifr and Gizurr, in the course of which Ari gives the names and terms of the lawspeakers during the relevant period: Gunnarr inn spaki (‘the Wise’) for three summers (1063-1065); Kolbeinn Flosason, six summers (1066-1071); then Gellir for a second term, three summers (1072-1074); then Gunnarr for a second term, one summer (1075); then Sighvatr Surtsson, ‘systurson Kolbeins’ (‘the son of Kolbeinn’s sister’), eight summers (1076-1083).

Markús Skeggjason. Ari cites Markús Skeggjason, lawspeaker (1084–1107), as one of his main sources of information: ‘At hans sǫgu es skrifuð ævi allra lǫgsǫgumanna á bók þessi, þeira es váru fyrir várt minni, en hónum sagði Þórarinn bróðir hans ok Skeggi faðir þeira ok fleiri spakir menn til þeira ævi, es fyrir hans minni váru, at því es Bjarni enn spaki hafði sagt, fǫðurfaðir þeira, es munði Þórarin lǫgsǫgumann ok sex aðra síðan’ (‘It is from his testimony that I have written in this book the lives of all the lawspeakers there were before I can remember; and he got the information about the lives of those who came before he could remember from his brother Þórarinn and his father Skeggi and other wise men, just as Bjarni the Wise, their father’s father, had told it to them, and he could remember lawspeaker Þórarinn [Ragabróðir] and six others since’) (ÍF I.1:22).

Even though Markús is not said to have been closely related to other lawspeakers, the genealogical emphasis in this passage describing how Markús acquired his information from his brother, father, and grandfather suggests that the cultivation of ancient learning tended to go in families, and it is not improbable that expertise in the law went hand in hand with a more general familiarity with historical learning (see Meulengracht Sørensen 1993:113-116). Also of great interest is the close cooperation between Markús and Bishop Gizurr Ísleifsson; Ari devotes a long passage to the tithe laws, which he says were introduced after consultation with Markús and on the initiative of Gizurr and the priest and historian Sæmundr Sigfússon (Sæmundr fróði, ‘Sæmundr the Learned’). From this it seems that Markús had closer connections with the Church than his predecessors among the ranks of lawspeakers; his poems on the Christian kings of Denmark and Sweden may perhaps point in the same direction.

Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson. Markús’s successor, Úlfheðinn (1108-1116), is said to be the son of a former lawspeaker, Gunnarr the Wise. Earlier in Íslendingabók Ari refers to Úlfheðinn twice as his source for particular pieces of information: on the finding of a body in Kolsgjá in connection with the establishment of the Alþingi site at Þingvellir; and on the division of the country into quarters in 965 following a dispute between the chieftains Þórðr gellir and Tungu-Oddr (see p. 321 below). Other than this, Ari has nothing to say about Úlfheðinn.

The significance of ecclesiastical connections in Ari’s accounts. The post-conversion lawspeakers listed in Íslendingabók fall into two groups according to what and how much Ari has to say about them (see table).

What then of the post-conversion lawspeakers who seem to have had no connections with the Church? Ari may not have much to say about them, but is this true of other sources? And do we find any evidence in these sources of these men being associated in other ways that might allow us to categorize them into particular family or political groupings?

Þorkell Tjǫrvason. Despite his having been lawspeaker for twenty years (1034-53), Þorkell Tjǫrvason is a shadowy figure indeed. Other than Íslendingabók, no ancient source applies the title of lawspeaker to any man of the relevant period bearing the name Þorkell. Ari’s lawspeaker has often been identified with the grandson of the 10th-century lawspeaker Þorgeirr Ljósvetningagoði (‘Priest of the House of Ljósavatn’); this man is mentioned once in Ljósvetninga saga: ‘Hrólfr hét sonr Þorkels Tjǫrvasonar Þorgeirssonar frá Ljósavatni’ (‘There was a man called Hrólfr, son of Þorkell, son of Tjǫrvi, son of Þorgeirr of Ljósavatn’) (ÍF X:101). Speaking against this identification, it is highly surprising, if this Þorkell really had held the distinguished position of lawspeaker, that Ljósvetninga saga should make no mention of this fact. However, cultivation of the law seems to have run in families, and the grandfather of this Þorkell Tjǫrvason had been the lawspeaker Þorgeirr of Ljósavatn, and this may be taken as evidence in favor of the conjectured identification.

In his history of the lawspeakers, Jón Sigurðsson (1886:18) mentions a suggestion put forward by Bogi Benediktsson that lawspeaker Þorkell might be identified with Þorkell, the son of Torfi Valbrandsson from the island of Skáney in Borgarfjörður, mentioned in Landnámabók; this conjecture has generally been rejected, in part on the grounds that this man is nowhere mentioned as having been a lawspeaker, and in part because it is hard to reconcile a confusion between the names ‘Torfi’ and ‘Tjǫrvi’ on the part of the author or copyist of Landnámabók.

Gellir Bǫlverksson. The genealogy of Gellir Bǫlverksson is given in Landnámabók (S 129, H 101). His paternal grandfather was Eyjólfr grái (‘the Gray’) and his mother was Ísgerðr, daughter of Þorsteinn, son of Oddleifr, the father of Gestr inn spaki (‘the Wise’), to whom Haukr Erlendsson traces his own descent at this point in Hauksbók. Landnámabók gives no line of descent from Gellir, but his mother’s sister was Véný, the mother of Þórðr krákunef (‘Crow-Nose’), ‘þaðan eru Krákneflingar komnir’ (‘from whom the Krákneflingar are descended’) (S 129). The line from Þórðr krákunef to his grandson, Þorvaldr of Vatnsfjörður, is given in Sturlunga saga.

The genealogies in Sturlunga saga trace a line of descent from Gunnarr to Ketill Þorleiksson, priest and lawspeaker in the final years of the Commonwealth (1259-1262). This Ketill was the son of Þorleikr/Þorlákr and Guðlaug, who was descended on her father’s side from Guðmundr ríki (‘the Powerful’) and whose mother was Sigríðr, daughter of Hallr, ‘Hrafnssonar lǫgmanns Úlfheðinssonar lǫgmanns Gunnarssonar lǫgmanns’ (‘son of Hrafn the lawspeaker, son of Úlfheðinn the lawspeaker, son of Gunnarr the lawspeaker’) (Sturlunga saga, 51)—but this is as far back as it goes. The genealogy is apparently intended to relate Ketill to Gunnarr and other lawspeakers, though Ketill’s power and position undoubtedly owed more to his maternal connections with the Haukdœlir (he himself was married to Halldóra Þorvaldsdóttir, the sister of Earl Gizurr) than to any descent from previous lawspeakers.

Kolbeinn Flosason. The lawspeaker Kolbeinn Flosason (1066-71) has been identified by different scholars with two different men known to have borne this name in the mid-11th century: Kolbeinn son of Flosi, the son of Valla-Brandr; and Kolbeinn the son of Flosi Þórðarson, the leader of the burners of Njáll in Njáls saga. Jakob Benediktsson (1968:364-365) in the Íslenzk fornrit edition of Landnámabók favors the latter. The name appears in the sources in the following contexts:

• Landnámabók (S 270, H 232) traces the genealogy of the Vápnfirðingar clan from Ǫlvir hvíti (‘the White’), father of Þorsteinn hvíti, father of Þorgils, father of Brodd-Helgi, father of Víga-Bjarni, father of Skegg-Broddi, father of Þórir, father of Guðrún ‘er átti Flosi, son Kolbeins’ (‘the wife of Flosi son of Kolbeinn’), this Kolbeinn being the son of Flosi Vallabrandsson. Later (S 359, H 315) a line of descent is given from the settler Flosi Þorbjarnarson, who moved to Iceland after killing three of King Haraldr hárfagri’s local governors; this includes the information that his daughter Ásný was the mother-in-law of Valla-Brandr, father of Flosi, father of Kolbeinn, ‘fǫður Guðrúnar, er Sæmundr fróði átti’ (‘father of Guðrún, the wife of [the historian] Sæmundr fróði’). In the Hauksbók redaction, Haukr Erlendsson extends this line down to himself and adds that Flosi married Guðrún, the daughter of Þórir, son of Skegg-Broddi: ‘þeira synir váru þeir Kolbeinn, er fyrr var nefndr, ok Bjarni, faðir Bjarna, fǫður Flosa, fǫður Valgerðar, móður herra Erlends, fǫður Hauks’ (‘their sons were Kolbeinn, mentioned previously, and Bjarni, father of Bjarni, father of Flosi, father of Valgerðr, mother of Squire Erlendr, father of Haukr [i.e. himself]’). We may suppose that Haukr would have noted that his ancestor Kolbeinn Flosason had held the title of lawspeaker if he had felt justified in doing so.
• The very last person mentioned in Njáls saga is Kolbeinn, the son of Flosi, the son of Kári and Hildigunnr, ‘er ágætastr maðr hefir verið einn hverr í þeiri ætt’ (‘one of the finest men to have come from that family’) (ÍF XII:463-4).
• In an uncontextualized genealogy at the end of the Sǫrla þáttr episode in Ljósvetninga saga, Kolbeinn Flosason is named as the father-in-law of the historian Sæmundr fróði: ‘Dœtr þrjár áttu Kolbeinn ok Guðríðr. Eina dóttur, Guðrúnu, átti Sæmundr inn fróði, ok tvær dœtr hans áttu tveir brœðr Sæmundar. Kolbeinn Flosason var grafinn í Fljótshverfi, en hon fœrði hann til Rauðalœkjar’ (‘Kolbeinn and Guðríðr had three daughters. One of these daughters, Guðrún, married Sæmundr fróði, and two of his [i.e. Kolbeinn’s] daughters married two of Sæmundr’s brothers. Kolbeinn Flosason was buried in Fljótshverfi but she had his body removed to Rauðalækur’ (ÍF X:112).
• Toward the end of Þorsteins saga Síðu-Hallssonar there is a lacuna, after which the text picks up with a series of genealogies. Among these there is a mention of Álǫf, the sister of Hallr of Síða, who is said to have been ‘móðir Kolbeins Flosasonar, Þórðar sonar Freysgoði at Svínafelli’ (‘the mother of Kolbeinn, son of Flosi, son of Þórðar Freyr’s-Priest of Svínafell’) (ÍF XI:319). Other notable people traced back to Hallr of Síða at this point include Bishop Jóhann the Holy; Gróa, the wife of Teitr, son of Gizurr the White (‘Their son was Hallr, father of Gizurr, father of Bishop Magnús and of Þorvaldr, father of [Earl] Gizurr’ (ibid.)); his son-in-law Eyjólfr, the son of Guðmundr ríki of Möðruvellir (‘Their daughter was Þórey, the mother of Sæmundr fróði, father of Loftr, father of Jón, father of Sæmundr of Oddi’ (ibid.)); and his grand-daughter Þórdís, who was mother of Jórunn, wife of Teitr Ísleifsson. In view of the obvious interest here in family connections to important personages it is surprising that Kolbeinn Flosason is neither named as lawspeaker nor said to be Sæmundr’s father-in-law—if this is one and the same man. Such distinction as accrues to this Kolbeinn comes from his blood connections to Flosi and Þórðr of Svínafell rather than from any official position he may have held.
• Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs traces the family of Bjarni of Hof. One of Bjarni’s daughters is said to be Halla, the mother of Guðríðr ‘er Kolbeinn lǫgsǫgumaðr átti’ (‘wife of lawspeaker Kolbeinn’) (ÍF XI:78); Kolbeinn’s father is not named, nor any relationship through marriage to Sæmundr fróði. One of Bjarni’s sons-in-law is said to have been Þorsteinn, the son of Hallr of Síða and the ancestor of Bishop Magnús Einarsson. Other notable figures listed here among Bjarni’s descendants include Þóra, the wife of Þorvaldr Gizurarson; Ormr of Svínafell; Guðný Bǫðvarsdóttir and the Sturlusons; Arnfríðr, the wife of Digr-Helgi; Finnr the priest (possibly the same man as lawspeaker Finnr Hallson); and ‘many men of noble lineage.’
• Kolbeinn Flosason is named in the genealogies in Sturlunga saga (37:46), where it is said that Sæmundr fróði married his daughter Guðrún.

The sources thus tell us that a man called Kolbeinn Flosason (the son of Valla-Brandr) was the father-in-law of the historian Sæmundr fróði: see Landnámabók, Ljósvetninga saga (no father specified) and Sturlunga saga (no father specified). A man of the same name appears as the son of Flosi Kárason in Njáls saga and of Flosi of Svínafell in Þorsteins saga Síðu-Hallssonar, and as a lawspeaker in Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs, though here without details of his paternity or son-in-law. Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs agrees with Ljósvetninga saga in giving the name of Kolbeinn Flosason’s wife as Guðríðr.

Whoever lawspeaker Kolbeinn Flosason really was, the compilers of the written sources do not appear to have shown much interest in tracing connections between him and the chieftainly clans of Iceland, except perhaps Þorsteins þáttr stangarhǫggs, which mentions him in the same breath as Bishop Magnús, Þorvaldr Gizurarson, and the Sturlusons—though without giving clear details of his own background and family connections.

Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson. Outside Íslendingabók, the only non-genealogical source to mention Úlfheðinn Gunnarsson is the lawbook Grágás (431), where he is cited as having promulgated the law on giving succor to outlaws. He is named in genealogies alongside his father Gunnarr (see above, p. 73) and appears in an addendum to the Þórðarbók/Melabók redaction of Landnámabók detailing the genealogy of Hafliði Másson: ‘Halldóra hét dóttir Húnrøðar, móðir Vigdísar, móður Úlfheðins, fǫður Hrafns, fǫður Hallberu, móður Valdísar, móður Snorra, fǫður Hallberu, er átti Markús Þórðarson á Melum’ (‘Halldóra was the daughter of Húnrøðr; she was the mother of Vigdís, mother of Úlfheðinn, father of Hrafn, father of Hallbera, mother of Valdís, mother of Snorri, father of Hallbera, wife of Markús Þórðarson of Melar’) (ÍF I.2: 226 n. 4). Here, as elsewhere in Melabók (see Rafnsson 1974:181-8), lines of descent are traced to Hallbera, the wife of Markús Þórðarson of Melar (head of the family which probably had a hand in compiling the Melabók around 1300), without any apparent interest in the official status of three generations of lawspeakers on the way, from Gunnarr, through Úlfheðinn, to Hrafn. According to this version, Gunnarr the Wise’s wife was a cousin of Hafliði Másson; this connection appears in no other source, and no special emphasis is placed on it.

Contrasting records: ancestry or descendants. It is possible to divide the lawspeakers about whom Ari says nothing beyond their names and brief genealogical details into three groups, according to what is known about them from other sources.

Two of the post-conversion lawspeakers whom Ari merely names without offering further information are so obscure that there is no unambiguous record in any source of even their immediate family relations: Þorkell Tjǫrvason and Kolbeinn Flosason.

About the others we have some information, either concerning their ancestry or descendants (or both). Þórðr gellir is named as the grandfather of Steinn Þorgestsson and the great-grandfather of Gellir Bǫlverksson, but nothing at all is known about the descendants of these two lawspeakers. Sighvatr Surtsson is the son of Kolbeinn’s sister; on his father’s side, Sighvatr is descended from Christian settlers and from Ketill flatnefr and he shares with Gellir a common great-great-grandfather (Geirleifr, the father of Helgi skarfr and Oddleifr). Of Sighvatr’s descendants, all we have are empty names, so in his case we may say that his ancestry is better known than his descendants.

The ancestry of Gunnarr the Wise Þorgrímsson is not recorded but we know that there were lawspeakers in the next two generations of his family, his son Úlfheðinn, and Hrafn and Gunnarr (both probably the sons of Úlfheðinn). Other than this, little renown seems to attach to the family of Gunnarr the Wise; some of his descendants are mentioned in the genealogies in Melabók, but even here nothing is made of the fact that their families included a number of lawspeakers of previous generations.

Conclusions. The genealogical information we have on the lawspeakers in the first century after the conversion indicates that the writers of books in the 12th and 13th centuries did not go out of their way to trace their own families or those of influential people of their times back to the 11th-century lawspeakers Steinn, Gellir, and Sighvatr. These men, however, were all of excellent stock and were themselves mutually related by blood or marriage according to those who recorded their histories. One possible explanation is, of course, that there really were no family connections between these lawspeakers and the leading families of the 12th and 13th centuries. It is perhaps more likely, however, that the writers chose not to associate themselves with these people—it is a truism of most genealogy that, if a particular figure is attractive enough, there are generally ways of finding some kind of family connection to him, however tenuous.

Around the year 1100, on the other hand, the star of Gunnarr the Wise and his son Úlfheðinn was clearly in the ascendant, and as we get on into the century two members of the third generation from Gunnarr were to follow in the family footsteps as lawspeakers. These men clearly form a distinct kinship group that stands apart from the other lawspeakers, unconnected with them through family relations, marriage or shared interests. Descendants of Gunnarr the Wise held the post of lawspeaker both before and after the writing of the laws at Breiðabólstaður in 1117-8, and so it is worth considering whether it is possible to deduce anything about their reactions to the introduction of the new technology. This of course would go hand in hand with their connections to the Church; book learning probably grew in importance as the century progressed, all the more so in this case if it is correct that efforts to make written records of the law came from within the Church and gathered strength as the power of the Church increased. Perhaps it is possible to see in the waning political influence of the family of Gunnarr the Wise a reluctance to accept and adopt the new technology of writing. It is thus worth taking a closer look at the lawspeakers who came after Bergþórr, up to the time of Gizurr Hallson in the late 12th century (after whom we can safely assume that all lawspeakers would have been literate and book trained), to see if there are any indications of the extent of their book knowledge and their attitudes toward it.

Guðmundr Þorgeirsson (1123–1134) is not mentioned in Landnámabók. In Þorgils saga ok Hafliða there is a man of this name who is said to be Þorgils Oddason’s brother-in-law and who joins Þorgils’s party when he rides to the Alþingi to confront Hafliði Másson in the summer of 1121. Sturlu saga describes the support given by Hvamm-Sturla Þórðarson (father of Snorri) to Bǫðvarr Þórðarson in the ‘Deildartungumál’ dispute; his opponent, Páll Sǫlvason, is supported by the chieftain Guðmundr dýri and his half-brother Jón Þórarinsson, who the saga says share the same mother, Þuríðr, the daughter of Guðmundr the lawspeaker, but beyond this passing reference the saga has nothing to say about him.

Jón Sigurðsson (1886) notes that there is no mention of Guðmundr (or any other secular leaders) at the time of the enactment of the first religious laws, which were introduced at the instigation of bishops Þorlákr and Ketill during Guðmundr’s first year as lawspeaker. Sigurðsson conjectures that Guðmundr was from the north of Iceland, the father of a priest called Þorgeirr whose name occurs in a list of northern priests dating from 1143. The Codex Regius text of Grágás mentions two rulings made by Guðmundr on the legality of particular aspects of the law: on poor relief (101) and on homicide (regarding the summoning of jurors from the scene of the crime and from the litigants’ home districts) (259)—which suggests that the lawspeaker’s oral ruling was taken to complement the existing written version of the law. If it is correct that lawspeaker Guðmundr was the brother-in-law of Þorgils Oddason, it is interesting that Þorgils should have managed to get him elected as lawspeaker in 1123, only two years after the settlement of his bitter dispute with Hafliði Másson; it is quite possible that this may have been part of the settlement, in return for Hafliði having his own man, Ketill Þorsteinsson, appointed bishop of Hólar in 1122 (see Þorsteinsson 1991:81).

The name of Hrafn Úlfheðinsson (1135–1138) appears three times in the Þórðarbók version of Landnámabók (from Melabók) in genealogies tracing the ancestry of Hallbera, the wife of Markús Þórðarson of Melar: first in connection with the pedigree of Úlfheðinn’s mother, and then twice in genealogies from his own mother: see the discussion of his grandfather, Gunnarr the Wise, p. 72 above. Other than the genealogical reference in Sturlunga saga mentioned previously (see p. 73 above), nothing more is known of this man.

Finnr Hallson is the first lawspeaker to be an ordained priest, and thus probably the first to have a knowledge of books. His relationship through his wife to Hafliði Másson strongly suggests that he was in on the first writing of the laws in the winter of 1117-8, making him the first lawspeaker to represent the views of the reformers: of his predecessors, Guðmundr Þorgeirsson was probably the brother-in-law of Þorgils Oddason, Hafliði’s archenemy, and Hrafn came from an established line of lawspeakers going back to before the writing of the laws. Finnr is also unique in that he does not appear to be linked with any other lawspeakers anywhere in his genealogy. He may thus represent an example of a new group within society with influence that derived not from dynastic connections but from command of the new technology that only he and other clerically educated men possessed, writing.

Finnr Hallson was succeeded by Gunnarr Úlfheðinsson (1146–1155). He is entirely unknown from the sources, though, as Jón Sigurðsson (1886:25) suggested, it seems eminently likely on the basis of his patronymic that he was the brother of lawspeaker Hrafn Úlfheðinsson; if this is so, it makes Gunnarr Úlfheðinsson the last of the descendants of Gunnarr the Wise to fill the post, for the time being at least.

However, as is clear from Guðmundar saga dýra in the Sturlunga saga compilation, the descendants of Gunnarr the Wise were by no means entirely without influence in the second half of the 12th century. The saga includes an account of a group of rich and well-born farmers from Reykjardalur in Þingeyjarsýsla in the north some time around 1180: ‘Þar var þá gott bóndaval í dalnum. Þá bjó í Fellsmúla Sigurðr Styrkársson lǫgsǫgumanns en á Grenjaðarstað Eyjólfr son Halls Hrafnssonar lǫgmanns Úlfheðinssonar lǫgmanns Gunnarssonar lǫgmanns’ (‘There were many fine farmers in the valley at the time. Sigurðr, son of lawspeaker Styrkárr [Oddsson], lived at Fellsmúli, and at Grenjaðarstaður lived Eyjólfr, son of Hallr, son of lawman Hrafn, son of lawman Úlfheðinn, son of lawman Gunnarr [the Wise]’) (123). This is followed by a recapitulation of the line given elsewhere in the genealogies down to the mid-13th-century priest (and lawspeaker) Ketill Þorleiksson (see p. 73), with the added note that Ketill was the grandfather of the Narfasons’ mother. The noble pedigrees of the farmers of Reykjardalur are significant. When Teitr Guðmundsson of Helgastaðir in Reykjardalur asks for the hand of Otkatla, the daughter of Þórólfr of Möðrufell (who is said to be the grandson of Hafliði Másson), the prospective couple are compared, with one of them being adjudged richer and the other of greater lineage (though it is not made clear which is which). Teitr left the country in 1185 and died while abroad. This led to disputes as to who should inherit his share in his and Otkatla’s property, viz. Teitr’s father Guðmundr Eyjólfsson, who had retired to the monastery of Þverá where Hallr Hrafnsson was abbot, or the brothers of Teitr’s father, who claimed that as a monk their brother was debarred from inheriting or controlling property. The dispute turned largely on disputed points of the law and broadened to involve Sigurðr of Fellsmúli and Eyjólfr of Grenjaðarstaður. Thus the relations of these men to lawspeakers past and present mentioned in the saga become a significant theme and imply that the reader can expect an expert knowledge of the law on the part of the disputants, whether it may also have been in Eyjólfr’s personal interests to take on the case or not. For instance, Eyjólfr uses his position to purchase the inheritance at half its value from Guðmundr, who is now a monk in his (i.e. Eyjólfr’s) father’s monastery. Eyjólfr’s wife Guðrún is Otkatla’s cousin (their mothers being sisters), making him a relation by marriage to the descendants of Hafliði Másson. The disputes between Eyjólfr and Ǫnundr Þorkelsson of Lönguhlíð, the local titular chieftain (goði), become increasingly bitter and the local magnate, Guðmundr dýri Þorvaldsson, steps in and wins great prestige from the whole affair (129). After Ǫnundr is burned to death in 1197, Guðmundr gains control of the titular chieftaincies (goðorð) of both Ǫnundr and the men of Grenjaðarstaður, but then retires to the monastery of Þingeyrar, where he dies in 1212. Eyjólfr’s power is thus destroyed and his titular chieftaincy later falls under the sway of Sighvatr Sturluson during the lawspeakership of Styrmir fróði (see above; see also Sigurðsson, J. V. 1989:58-9).

On the evidence of their successes in elections to the lawspeakership, the descendants of Gunnarr the Wise remained ambitious and influential well on into the middle of the 12th century. It is worth noting that both Hallr Hrafnsson and his son Eyjólfr appear to have become abbots in their later years. Hallr was already abbot of the Benedictine priory at Þverá in 1184, the point at which Guðmundar saga dýra opens—the third abbot of Þverá according to the lists of abbots in AM 415 4to and the Stockholm manuscript, both dating from the 14th century (see Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn, vol. 3, letters 12 and 114). According to the annals and Prestssaga Guðmundar Arasonar, Abbot Hallr died in 1190. However, the Prestssaga makes no mention of Hallr being consecrated at the time he is visited at Grenjaðarstaður in the autumn of 1173 by Guðmundr Arason and his kinsman Ingimundr the Priest, though the saga otherwise contains several references to consecrations, e.g. that of Guðmundr himself as an acolyte at Grenjaðarstaður by Bishop Brandr the following spring. The same applies to the genealogical lists in Sturlunga saga, where both father and son Hallr and Eyjólfr appear without clerical titles among other people specifically designated as priests, lawspeakers, or lawmen.

At the start of Þorgils saga ok Hafliða the two protagonists are introduced in conventional fashion: Hafliði Másson of Breiðabólstaður in Vesturhóp and Þorgils Oddason of Staðarhóll in Saurbær. (According to Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns, Þorgils was descended from Steinólfr the Short.) Þorgils’s neighbors are then listed, among whom is Húnbogi ‘faðir Snorra lǫgsǫgumanns’ (‘the father of Snorri the lawspeaker’) (Sturlunga saga, 8). This is interesting in that it follows Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns in deliberately bringing out a connection, however tenuous, between Þorgils Oddason and Snorri the lawspeaker—in the þáttr, Þorgils is of the sixth generation from Steinólfr the Short, Snorri’s wife Yngvildr of the eighth. In a list of farmers of good standing living in the area around Þorgils, next after Húnbogi comes a priest called Már Þormóðsson of Sælingsdalstunga: ‘Hann var frændi náinn Hafliða Mássonar. Halldóra hét móðir hans, dóttir Védísar Másdóttur, en Védís var systir Hafliða Mássonar’ (‘He [sc. Már] was a close relative of Hafliði Másson. His mother was called Halldóra, daughter of Védís Másdóttir, who was the sister of Hafliði Másson’) (Sturlunga saga 8). In 1120, Húnbogi leads a party of two hundred ‘worthy’ men to try to ease tensions between the chieftains when Hafliði comes south with almost a hundred men and stays with Már the priest at Sælingsdalstunga the night before the court of confiscation where Hafliði intends to press charges against Þorgils (Sturlunga saga, 31-2). Thus, Már is on the side of Hafliði because of their close family relations, while Húnbogi tries to arbitrate, possibly because of his connections with the other party in the dispute.

On his introduction into Sturlu saga, Snorri the lawspeaker is supplied with an even nobler ancestry than in Geirmundar þáttr heljarskinns. Here, his mother’s line is traced back to Þorbjǫrg, the daughter of Óláfr Hǫskuldsson (the hero of the first part of Laxdœla saga), and thence to Óláfr the White Ingjaldsson and the legendary progenitor, Sigurðr Snake-Eye (Sturlunga saga, 52). Later in the saga, Snorri’s sons, Narfi and Þorgils, lend their support to Þorleikr Birningsson and Snorri sveinn from Heinaberg, who in 1185 had attacked Einarr Þorgilsson after Einarr had attempted to force the issue in his simmering dispute with Hvamm-Sturla over Birningr Steinarsson’s property. By this time Sturla was already dead, but by their action Snorri Húnbogason’s sons threw in their lot with the Sturlungar (Sturlunga saga, 181-2)—as comes out again a little later in the saga when Þorgils hands over to Þórðr Sturluson a half share in the Þórsnes goðorð (i.e. the titular chieftaincy of the Þórsnes district) (Sturlunga saga, 187). It is interesting to note that the Konungsannáll (‘Royal Annals’) says that ‘Snorri Húnbogason, priest and lawman’ died in 1170; there is nothing in Sturlunga saga to say that Snorri was a priest, but if he was he would certainly, like Finnr Hallsson before him, have known how to read and write.

From all this emerges a picture of Snorri Húnbogason as a person of fairly humble background in the older versions of Landnámabók, but who is then given a rather more elevated profile by Sturla Þórðarson when he includes him in his version, and by the compilers of Sturlunga saga, who link him through his wife to a number of great figures of the past. Snorri was a priest and his father Húnbogi is mentioned as a farmer of good standing from the neighborhood around Þorgils Oddason (along with Már, the priest at Sælingsdalstunga and kinsman of Hafliði Másson, even if they stood on opposite sides in the feud that forms the central subject matter of Þorgils saga ok Hafliða). Later, Snorri’s sons throw in their lot with Hvamm-Sturla and thus associate themselves with the most powerful family of the next decades, the Sturlungar. It may well be, then, that this enhancement of the reputation of Snorri the lawspeaker that we find in the later sources came about as a result of his sons’ connections with the Sturlungar.

The final lawspeaker before Gizurr Hallsson is Styrkárr Oddason (1171–1180). He is not mentioned in Landnámabók but a list of names in Prestssaga Guðmundar Arasonar includes the information that he became lawspeaker in 1174 and died in the plague winter of 1180-1. Nothing more is known about him directly, but his son Sigurðr appears in Guðmundar saga dýra as a supporter of Eyjólfr Hallsson (see above, p. 81). In the same source, Ingiríðr, the wife of the priest Kleppjárn Klœngsson, is said to be Sigurðr’s sister, which would make her Styrkárr’s daughter assuming they were full siblings, though the relationship between them is never specified per se. These people all came out on the losing side in a series of disputes in 1187 (after Gizurr Hallsson had assumed the lawspeakership), disputes from which Guðmundr dýri emerged with his reputation much enhanced. According to Sturla Þórðarson’s Íslendingasaga (Sturlunga saga, 228-9), in 1212 Sighvatr Sturluson offered his support to Kálfr Guttormsson after the killing of Hallr Kleppjárnsson. These sparse snippets of information enable us to infer a connection between Styrkárr and the lawspeaker dynasty of Gunnarr the Wise, since Styrkárr’s son Sigurðr supports Eyjólfr Hallsson in the disputes described in the early chapters of Guðmundar saga dýra (see p. 81). Thus, through his son, Styrkárr is indirectly allied to the party that appears to be on the back foot in the power struggle described in the saga, and his descendants finish up in the opposing camp to the Sturlungar. There are no suggestions in any of the sources of Styrkárr himself being associated in any way with the priesthood or book learning.

The men who filled the post of lawspeaker from the time of the first writing of the laws up until Gizurr Hallsson can be divided broadly into two groups, according to whether or not the sources link them in any way with the priesthood, and therefore with book learning: