Gray Goose Laws

The Gray (Grey) Goose Laws (Icelandic: Grágás) were a collection of laws from the Icelandic Commonwealth period. The term Grágás was originally used in a medieval source to refer to a collection of Norwegian laws and was probably mistakenly used to describe the existing collection of Icelandic law during the sixteenth century. The Grágás laws in Iceland were presumably in use until 1262–1264 when Iceland was taken over by the Norwegian crown.

Origins of Icelandic Law

According to Ari Thorgilsson, the earliest Icelandic laws were modeled on those from the Norwegian west-coast law-province, Gulathing. These were introduced to Iceland by an immigrant from Norway named Úlfljótr, sometime during the 920's. Following several years of modification and revision, Úlfljótr's laws were approved by an initial assembly. Out of this meeting, the annual general assembly known as the Althing was established. Each following summer, Icelanders would convene at Thingvellir for legislative and judicial meetings which would be supervised by the Lawspeaker.