ISBN10: 0198207999, ISBN13: 9780198207993, [publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford] Hardcover Hardcover. In this first historical study of High-Medieval Iceland to be published in English, Dr Vesteinsson investigates the influence of the Christian Church on the formation of the earliest state structures in Iceland, from the conversion in 1000 to the union with Norway in 1262. In the history of mankind states and state structures have usually been established before the advent of written records. As a result historians are rarely able to tracewith certainty the early development of complex structures of government. In Iceland, literacy and the practice of native history writing had been established by the beginning of the twelfth century;whereas the formation of a centralised government did not occur until more than a hundred years later. The early development of statelike structures has therefore been unusually well chronicled, in the Icelandic Sagas, and in the historical records of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Based on this wealth of material,The Christianization of Iceland is an important contribution to the discussion on the formation of states. This study investigates the role played by the Christian church in the development of power structures in Iceland, from the conversion in AD 1000 to the end of the thirteenth century. It demonstrates that by the time of the union with the Norwegian kingdom in 1262, fundamental constitutional changes had been ...
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