TheGray Goose Laws (Icelandic:Grágás[ˈkrauːˌkauːs]) are a collection oflaws from theIcelandic Commonwealth period. The termGrágás was originally used in a medieval source to refer to a collection ofNorwegian laws and was probably mistakenly used to describe the existing collection of Icelandic law during thesixteenth century. The Grágás laws in Iceland were presumably in use until 1262–1264 whenIceland was taken over by theNorwegian crown.
According toAri 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 theAlthing was established. Each following summer, Icelanders would convene atThingvellir for legislative and judicial meetings which would be supervised by the Lawspeaker.
The term "Gray Goose Laws", used to describe the laws of the Icelandic Commonwealth by the 16th century, may reflect that
The existing Icelandic Commonwealth laws that now exist as theGrágás never actually existed in one complete volume duringmedieval times. TheGrágás does not contain a unified body of law, as arguably one never existed in the Icelandic Commonwealth. Instead, theGrágás was derived from two smaller, fragmentary volumes known as theKonungsbók (Copenhagen,Royal Library, GKS 1157 fol), apparently written around 1260, andStaðarhólsbók (Reykjavík,Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, AM 334 fol), apparently written in 1280. The ornate detail and appearance of the volumes suggests that they were created for a wealthy, literate man, though scholars cannot be certain. Because theGrágás laws originally existed in two different forms, each has a unique written account of the law. Sometimes theKonungsbók andStaðarhólsbók present different information, sometimes complementary information, and sometimes contradictory information. This could represent the way in which the law was interpreted differently by different scribes or by different citizens.
According to theGrágás, one third of the Icelandic laws were recited by theLaw Speaker at the Icelandic nationalparliament, theAlþingi, each year over a three-year period. In 1117, the Alþingi decided that all the laws should be written down and this was accomplished atHafliði Másson’s farm over that winter and published the following year.
These laws remained in force until 1271–1273 at which time theIronside Laws—based on Norwegian laws—were adopted. There is scholarly disagreement, however, about how representative the Grágás are regarding the legal tradition that existed during Viking age Iceland. Arguably, the codification of oral law in theGrágás better represents Icelandic legal tradition post-Christianity, thus after the year 1000.