Magnus Lagabøtes landslov in the context of "Thing (assembly)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Magnus Lagabøtes landslov

Magnus Lagabøtes landslov (lit.'Magnus the Lawmender's Law of the Land') was a law covering the whole of Norway, issued by King Magnus VI of Norway, constituted by the regional courts (cf. Things) between 1274 and 1276. The law was the first to apply to Norway as a whole and is one of the first examples of comprehensive national legislation from a central authority in all of Europe. The law is the reason that the king was given the name Lagabøte, "the one who improves the law". Albeit mending the law, with this much more detailed formulation of the law into written text, codification, the law-giving power was to a great extent taken away from the popular assemblies, these higher level regional things (Borgarting, Eidsivating, Gulating and Frostating), by King Magnus VI. He managed to circumvent the traditional authority of these traditional things by the elaboration and codification of the Bjarkeyjarréttr, laws and things for the market-places, cities and towns with trade-rights, also temporary markets (cf: Birk (market place) and Bjarkey laws) that eventually made the cities (Nidaros which is Trondheim, Bergen, Tønsberg) independent from the traditional things (assemblies).

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Magnus Lagabøtes landslov in the context of Kingdom of Norway (872–1397)

The term Norwegian Realm (Old Norse: *Noregsveldi, Bokmål: Norgesveldet, Nynorsk: Noregsveldet) and Old Kingdom of Norway refer to the Kingdom of Norway's peak of power in the 13th century after a long period of civil war before 1240. The kingdom was a loosely unified nation including the territory of modern-day Norway, modern-day Swedish territory of Jämtland, Herjedalen, Ranrike (Bohuslän) and Idre and Särna, as well as Norway's overseas possessions which had been settled by Norwegian seafarers for centuries before being annexed or incorporated into the kingdom as 'tax territories'. To the North, Norway also bordered extensive tax territories on the mainland. Norway, whose expansionism starts from the very foundation of the Kingdom in 872, reached the peak of its power in the years between 1240 and 1319.

At the peak of Norwegian expansion before the civil war (1130–1240), Sigurd I led the Norwegian Crusade (1107–1110). The crusaders won battles in Lisbon and the Balearic Islands. In the Siege of Sidon they fought alongside Baldwin I and Ordelafo Faliero, and the siege resulted in an expansion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Leif Erikson, an Icelander of Norwegian origin and official hirdman of King Olaf I of Norway, explored America 500 years before Columbus. Adam of Bremen wrote about the new lands in Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (1076) when meeting Sweyn I of Denmark, but no other sources indicate that this knowledge went farther into Europe than Bremen, Germany. The Kingdom of Norway was the second European country after England to enforce a unified code of law to be applied for the whole country, called Magnus Lagabøtes landslov (1274).

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