Mostrathing

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The Mostrathing was a thing on the island of Moster in Sunnhordland in what is now western Norway . The island is located on the north side of the Bømlafjord a little inland.

The name

The name has an etymological connection with the Latin word mons = mountain. However, the island has no high mountains compared to the surrounding area. It cannot therefore have been the amount. Rather, another peculiarity must have distinguished the island. The Øyrbyggja saga from the beginning of the 13th century gives some information about the situation in Mostar at the time of Harald Hårfagre : Þórólv Mostring was a great admirer of the god Thor . He emigrated to Iceland in 884 and settled at Breiðafjörður and named the country Þórsnes. There is a mountain there which he called Helgafell ( Holy Mountain ). Þórólf also founded a thing place there, the Þórsnes-Thing . There is much to suggest that he repeated what he had previously on Moster in Norway, that the relatively small one on Moster was a holy mountain and that this mountain gave the island its name.

The Mostrathing

Þórólf Mostring had a thing on Moster. A thing at that time had a law rock and a thing meadow, and it had to face east. The chiefs stood on the rock and turned to the east, and below the people stood and turned to the west and looked up at the chiefs. In all probability the rock of the law was on the grounds of the Teigland farm northeast of the current old church there. According to today's knowledge, Olav Tryggvason should have given his speech on the rock with which he introduced Christianity. In 1024 the people of Moster remembered two special events: one was the emigration of Þórólf Mostring, the other the speech by Olav Tryggvason in 995. The little saga Ágrip (around 1190) says succinctly: “There the pagans took Christianity and Olav took over the kingdom. ” He then had the church built there, which is still there. The first pastor was Thangbrand and Olav gave him the court. That must have been Teigland, a farm that belonged to the parish until 1821. On the advice of Bishop Grimkjell, Olav the Saint gave the parish so much more land that she took in nine laup of butter. The church was apparently the main church of Hordaland at the time. How big the catchment area of ​​the Mostrathing was in the 9th century is not known. It may have been Hordaland and the northern part of Ryfylke . In the 10th century the Thing area corresponded to the district for which the ship contingent was set ( skipreide ), i.e. Finnås (today part of Bømlo ), Stord and something of Fitjar . It lasted until 1927.

The Imperial Assembly of 1024

In 1024, Olav the Saint, together with his bishop Grimkjell, an Englishman and nephew of Bishop Sigvard, who had been bishop in Norway under Olaf Tryggvason, held a church assembly in Mostar, at which he pushed through the Christianization of the country and the organization of the church set in Norway. There is no consensus in science as to whether it was an imperial assembly, an imperial and church assembly, possibly based on the English model, or just a local assembly.

The comparison of the four traditional Christian rights in Gulathingslov , Frostathingslov , Borgarthingslov and Eidsivathingslov are very similar, even if the order of the topics covered varies. The gulathingslov is the most ancient. From this comparison it can be concluded that they all stem from a template that was worked out at the Mostarthing and then submitted to the individual thing assemblies for adoption. Since this happened at certain time intervals and the religious conditions were also different, there were changes in the text.

From this it follows, according to Robbestad , that the imperial assembly was only an advisory assembly which, through the participation of all advisors of the empire from the other thing districts, guaranteed the acceptance of the law on the other things, but did not make binding decisions for these. This law was then passed for the Mostar district. But it has not been preserved.

literature

  • Knut Robberstad: Mostratinget 1024 og Sankt Olavs Kristenrett . Reprint of a lecture in Moster on July 28, 1974.