The Faroes

Who holds it

Name

The lawman of 1200 is not known by name

Title

The islands' assembly (the alþingi of Færeyinga saga, later called the Løgting) on Tinganes in Tórshavn, under its lawman (lǫgmaðr, Faroese løgmaður)

Since

The assembly is believed to go back to the ninth or tenth century

Born

Not applicable

Family

Not applicable

Confidence

low

No Faroese lawman is named between the early eleventh century (Færeyinga saga) and the late thirteenth. The first surviving document about the islands is the sheep letter (Seyðabrævið) of 1298. Store norske leksikon: the assembly was the highest law-making and judging body of the islanders and "from the 1200s gradually sank to become a royal court". No royal officer in the islands is attested for 1200.

Overlord

King Sverre Sigurdsson of Norway: the Faroes have been a tributary land (skattland) of the Norwegian crown since 1035

What it holds

• The assembly place on Tinganes at Tórshavn, on Streymoy
• The eighteen inhabited and uninhabited islands: Streymoy, Eysturoy, Vágar, Sandoy, Suðuroy, Borðoy and the other Northern Isles, Nólsoy, Hestur, Koltur, Skúvoy, Stóra Dímun, Mykines and the rest
• The king's tribute (skattr), owed to the Norwegian crown
• The see of the Faroes at Kirkjubøur (Church map record), which owns much of the islands' land

How it was acquired

Sigmundur Brestisson won the islands for King Olaf Tryggvason and brought Christianity about 1000; they were made a tributary land of the Norwegian crown in 1035. The see was founded about 1100, under Hamburg-Bremen, then Lund (1104) and Nidaros (from 1152-53).

Allies and rivals

King Sverre, whose ties to the islands are personal: he was raised as the stepson of a Faroese comb-maker, Unás, and taught by his kinsman Bishop Roe at Kirkjubøur (Sverris saga). The Øyskjegg rising of 1193-94, which raised the pretender Sigurd Magnusson, was recruited in Orkney and Shetland; the sources checked do not name the Faroes. After it Sverre took Shetland from Earl Harald Maddadsson (1195); the Faroes, already directly the king's, were not touched.

How things stand that morning

Held for King Sverre. Who collects the king's tribute and speaks for him in the islands in 1200 is not known. The papal order of 1198 putting the parts of Norway that support Sverre under interdict may in law reach the islands, which belong to Sverre and to the province of Nidaros, but there is no evidence of how, or whether, Bishop Sven kept it. The islands lie far from the war with the Bagler, which is fought in Viken, the Uplands and the sea round Bergen and Nidaros.

Wealth

Sheep, and the wool and homespun cloth made from them, the islands' chief export; fowling on the bird cliffs; fishing; pilot whales and driftwood, which are valuable property rights. No grain to speak of and no timber: both are imported. Trade goes mostly to and from Bergen.

Military

None: no castle, no fleet and no royal garrison. The islanders owe the king the levy (leiðangr) in law; how it was met in 1200 is not pinned.

Threats

• Being drawn into Norway's civil war, or caught by the interdict on Sverre's lands
• Dependence on the Bergen ships for grain and timber

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. Summer 1200The assembly meets at Tinganes; ships sail to and from Bergen with the king's tribute, wool and homespun, bringing news of the war with the Bagler.Depends on: The sailing season and the state of the war round Bergen. Stopped by: War at sea off western Norway.
2. 9 March 1202 (beyond 1200)King Sverre dies at Bergen; his son Haakon succeeds (Norway map record).Depends on: Sverre's natural death. Stopped by: Play that changes his circumstances.

Places of note

• Tinganes: The assembly place on the rocks at Tórshavn.
• Kirkjubøur: The bishop's seat and largest farm; where Sverre was brought up.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign notes do not name the bishop of the Faroes (Part 11, ruling 11: lesser Scandinavian sees not pinned). The list of bishops consulted gives Sven, bishop until his death in 1212, with no start date; that he is already bishop on 1 January 1200 is likely but not pinned.
• Whether a royal officer (sýslumaður) already governed the islands in 1200 is not known; this record follows the evidence that the islanders' own assembly is the attested body.

Evidence: Almost nothing is recorded about the Faroes between Færeyinga saga (to about 1035) and the sheep letter of 1298, apart from the bishops' names and Sverre's upbringing in Sverris saga.

On the map: All the islands as one body: there were no districts with lords of their own.

Primary sources for Norway (Sverre)

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Danish annals of Lund, Ryd and other houses (12th and 13th centuries; Lund continued to 1307, Ryd to 1288). Short dated entries from Lund, the archbishop's seat, and from Ryd in Schleswig. Read online
• Chronicle of the Kings of Mann and the Isles, Anonymous (monks of Rushen abbey, Mann) (about 1257, with continuations to 1316). The only native record of the kingdom of Mann and the Hebrides. Read online
• The Icelandic annals to 1578 (compiled from the late 13th century onward from older notes). Year-by-year notices that fix Icelandic chronology. Read online
• Deeds of the Danes, Saxo Grammaticus (about 1185 to 1208). Saxo was writing at Lund in 1200 under Absalon, who died in March 1201, and his last books are an insider's history of Valdemar I and Knud VI to 1185: the Wendish wars, the taking of Rügen, the submission of Pomerania in 1185, the Danish fleet, Absalon's power and the Danish quarrel with the Empire. Read online
• The saga of King Sverre of Norway, Karl Jónsson and a continuator (begun about 1185 under Sverre's own supervision, completed about 1210 to 1220). The king's own authorised saga. Read online
• The saga of the descendants of Knut (the kings of Denmark) (about 1250 to 1260). An Icelandic kings' saga of Denmark that draws on Saxo and Danish tradition and ends in 1187 with Knud VI and Absalon's Wendish wars. Read online
• The sagas of the Baglers (about 1210 to 1220, in a shorter and a longer version). Begins with Sverre's death in March 1202 and the reigns of Hákon Sverrisson, Guttorm and Inge Bårdsson against the Bagler kings Erling Steinvegg and Philippus, so it has nothing for 1200 itself. Read online
• Saga of the Earls of Orkney, Anonymous (Icelandic) (about 1200 to 1230; surviving text mainly from Flateyjarbok, about 1390). The saga's last chapters are about Earl Harald Maddadsson, who in 1200 held Orkney under King Sverre of Norway and Caithness under William the Lion: his long rule, his quarrel with the Scottish king that cost him Caithness in 1196 to 1197, his recovery of it, and the maiming of Bishop John of Caithness and the king's revenge in 1201 to 1202. Read online

6 more in the sources library for Scandinavia.