The Icelanders determined that they would base the laws for their new country on the Viking law of their heritage.
For the Norse settlers of Iceland, political discord was caused by the actions of a Norse king whose dictates were overthrowing the established principles of Viking law. Thus, these freemen fled to Iceland.
The Norse freemen who settled in Iceland determined the values that were accepted by the society of which they were a part were being distorted by a new king. These Norse freemen were committed to the values of the traditional Viking society. Thus, these Norse freemen felt that they were forced to make a choice between living under the rules of the new legal political system or abandon everything that they had worked to attain and fled to a new land.
While much of the traditional Viking law was retained, the Icelandic Constitution created a model for all cultures with the establishment of the Althing, or parliament, as a central legislative body for the entire country. The new Constitution structured to meet the specific needs of the new country established in Iceland, however, was derived directly from traditional Viking law.
When the concept of the Thing was established in the Constitution of the new Iceland, however, the concept of universal access was to the legal process distorted, as the control of the Althing was placed in the hands of 36 godar. Thus, the Constitution of the new Republic in Iceland enshrined aristocratic control of the new country through providing the country's aristocracy with the power to control the Althing. This situation built into Iceland's new legal structure a flaw that would eventually rot through from the inside of the system.
The Book of Settlements: Landnamabok. Palsson, Herman, and Paul Edwards. (Trans.). Winnipeg, Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 1980).
Du Chaillu, Paul B. The Viking Age, Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1890.
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