Sunday 19 July 2015

The Vikings in Þingvellir and their Assembly (Iceland)

The Althing is the oldest extant parliamentary institution in the World and was the the first assembly representing whole Iceland. It was founded by the Viking settlers of Iceland at a place which then became the capital of the Icelandic Commonwealth in 930. It came together for two weeks a year and set laws. It was an open-air assembly. It also came together after the Union with Norway in 1262 and thus survived the end of the Icelandic Commonwealth. In 1800 the Althing was disbanded by royal Danish decree, but it was already revived by another royal decree in 1843. Election were held the next year and the new Althing came together in 1845, but now in Iceland's present day capital Reykjavik.


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