Spjall:Landsfjórðungur

message: Hi friends, would some kind soul please translate the lead paragraph of the article into English, for the rest of us :-)
"Landsfjórðungar voru fjögur stjórnsýsluumdæmi sem Íslandi var skipt í árið 965 vegna þinghalds (fjórðungsþing) og dóma (fjórðungsdómar) og skyldu sakaraðilar eiga sama sóknarþing ella skyldi málið flutt á Alþingi. Í hverjum fjórðungi voru þrjú vorþing nema í Norðlendingafjórðungi þar sem þau voru fjögur. Að auki voru þrjú goðorð í hverjum fjórðungi.
Eftir 1271 voru lögmenn settir yfir hvern fjórðung, yfirleitt einn norðan og vestan og annar sunnan og austan, en fyrir kom að einn lögmaður var settur yfir hvern fjórðung. 
Hólabiskupsdæmi var látið ná yfir Norðlendingafjórðung frá stofnun þess 1106, en Skálholtsbiskupsdæmi yfir hina þrjá.
Á 18. öld voru fjórðungarnir gerðir að læknisumdæmum (fjórðungslæknir)."
--195.200.70.22 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 10:32 (UTC) User Ratzer in the English Wikipedia
replies: text: I added a bit about the farthings to the English article. It's not really a translation, but contains all of the information found here. Hope you don't mind... regards. --Akigka 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 11:49 (UTC)
replies: text: :Many thanks. Something I had overlooked, what do the dates in the individual fjórðungur listings refer to? What happened in 1783 and 1893 regarding to Austfirðingafjórðungur, and in the 13th century to Vestfirðingafjórðungur? (the rest I understand is a description of the geographic extension between fjords and peninsulas).--195.200.70.22 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 13:32 (UTC) User Ratzer in the English Wikipedia
thread_title: translation request from the English speakers

message: Did the fjórðungar have traditional capitals? In the case of Norðlendingafjórðungur I would suspect Akureyri as capital, and in Sunnlendingafjórðungur of course Reykjavik, but in the other two I would not be sure.--195.200.70.22 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 13:39 (UTC)User Ratzer in the English Wikipedia
replies: text: Ehm, no, as Akureyri for example didn't exist when the farthings were active administrative divisions. There were no 'towns' to speak of in Iceland until the 19th century. --Akigka 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 13:47 (UTC)
replies: text: :I guess if we speak about capitals in this context, we mean the locations where the fjórðungar regional assemblies and the district courts were meeting. Unless those locations changed frequently, I think we could speak of those locations as regional capitals, even in a time when there were no towns or other population concentrations. If you say there were no towns until the 19th century, how was the settlement pattern? Nomadic, or totally disperse farms, ranches, fishermen's huts (albeit on or close to the coast, in contrast to an empty interior), not even villages, not even minimal concentrations of population?--195.200.70.23 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 07:19 (UTC) User Ratzer in the English Wikipedia
replies: text: :: Farms and huts. Sometimes grouping of 5-10 small farms with some specialisation between them around one main farm. The assemblies were open air affairs like the Alþingi which met at Þingvellir. And like althingi they usually took place always in the same place. However, usually this was an open ground, and thus cannot be termed 'capital'. For Alþingi people used to create temporary booths or tents to do their business in. --Akigka 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 10:10 (UTC)
replies: text: :::The important thing to note though, it that the farthings simply weren't all that important as administrative divisions. The main division of Iceland was into counties. The lawmen were simply the most powerful of the county sheriffs chosen from their ranks as leaders of the Icelandic temporal power (note that the lawmen were always also county sheriffs). They would be little more than footnotes in history if it weren't for the hospitals and doctors which revived the use of the farthing designation in the 18th century. --Akigka 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 11:03 (UTC)

text: Akureyri is sometimes called the Capital of the North, but like Akigka said it is not really considered a capital.  But if we look at where the Fjórðungssjúkrahús (large regional hospitals) are they would be Ísafjörður and Neskaupstaður. --85.220.105.21 12. febrúar 2008 kl. 16:38 (UTC)
replies: text: : There is also a fjórðungssjúkrahús on Akureyri, I had stone forgot about these. --Akigka 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 10:14 (UTC)

text: Since Akigka explained that there were no towns until the 19th century, whas this also the time when place names such as Reykjavík, Akureyri, Ísafjörður and Neskaupstaður were created, or are those names older and denoted hamlets, solitary houses, or even meeting places without buildings?--195.200.70.23 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 07:19 (UTC)
replies: text: : The first booths on the isthmus Eyri in Skutulsfjordur (now Isafjardarbaer) were built by Hamburg merchants in the 16th century and the place became the main port of trade with foreign merchants in the westfjords. The first houses were built by the Danish merchants in the 18th century. Akureyri was named after another isthmus (Eyrin). The first apartment house was built there in 1778 and the town grew from there. The town of Reykjavik grew around a few buildings created for the textile industry set up there by an Icelandic company with funding from the king in the middle of the 18th century. Before that merchants had booths in Holmurinn, a small island connected with land marking the west end of the bay of Reykjavik. I'm not sure about Neskaupstaður. I guess all of these could be called 'hamlets' in the 18th century and grew into 'village' in the 19th century, but they were by no means 'the capital' of any place, but simply places where people came to trade with merchants who sailed to the country in the summer. There were other hamlets like that at the same time which did not grow into towns until much later, i.e. on the Reykjanes peninsula, and three places which were almost 'villages' already (the bishops' seats at Holar and Skalholt, and Heimaey in Vestmannaeyjar). The 'administrative centers' in the 18th century, if any, were the farms where the county sheriffs lived, e.g. Ögur in Isafjardardjup (close to the modern Isafjardarbaer), but these varied greatly from time to time. --Akigka 13. febrúar 2008 kl. 10:05 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Neskaupsstaður simply means Nes-town, it's named after some Nes that was at the site until the town started to form (which wasn't until the late 19th century). I'm guessing Nes was a farm or an ithmus or maybe both. Nes means peninsula, we are the masters of generic placenames here in Iceland. :) BTW, the hospital in Akureyri has recently dropped "Fjórðungs-" from its name, now it's just Sjúkrahúsið á Akureyri so even those last vestiges of the old farthings are being killed off. --Bjarki 14. febrúar 2008 kl. 23:53 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitals

message: Hi again, and thanks again for putting the information into the English Wikipedia article. There you wrote: "Each farthing contained three local assemblies (held in spring and autumn) except the Norðlendingafjórðungur which had four." What's here the generic Icelandic name for "local assembly" (singular and plural)? I suspect their areas are noted as fine brown lines on the Landsfjórðungar map, so-to-say as subdivisions of the Landsfjórðungar.
I also think I found the names in English translation here: :
*        The Quarter of the Western Firths, part II.
**                                Thverar-thing (Þverárþing)
**                                Thorsness-thing (Þórsnessþing)
**                                Thorskalfjardar-thing (Þorskafjarðarþing)
*        The Northern Quarter, Part III.
**                                Hunavatns-thing (Húnavatnsþing)
**                                Hegraness-thing (Hegranessþing)
**                                Vaðla-thing (Vaðlaþing)
**                                Thingeyjar-thing (Þingeyjarþing)
*        The Quarter of the Eastern Firths, Part IV.
**                                Sunnudal-thing (Sunnudalsþing)
**                                Kidjafells-thing (Kiðjafellsþing)
**                                Skaptafells-thing (Skaptafellsþing)
*        The Quarter of the Southern Firths, Part V.
**                                Rangar-thing (Rangárþing)
**                                Arness-thing (Árnessþing)
**                                Kjalarness-thing (Kjalarnessþing)
</br> Here, the original Icelandic names would be of interest.--195.200.70.23 14. febrúar 2008 kl. 13:37 (UTC)
replies: text: : Excellent . Local assembly is simply a þing (meaning assembly or parliament). One could also use héraðsþing (regional assembly). In en.wiktionary you can find further definition of the word. As you can see by the names above some of these assemblies later directly muted into counties (e.g. Húnavatnsþing => Húnavatnssýsla, Skaptafellsþing => Skaftafellssýsla). The 'þing'-names were used well into the early modern age (sometimes even in the 20th century) although most people nowadays are more used to the 'sýsla'-names. The fine brown lines on the map actually denote the counties, some of which correspond to the thing, while some don't. For example, on the map Strandasýsla is marked (the eastern part of the Westfjords) but this county did not have a special þing in commonwealth times and was created much later.
replies: text: ::So, the counties (sýslur) existed as early as 1761 (map) (although fewer than today). When were they established, and what function did they have, if they didn't necessarily correspond to þing areas? (BTW, what's the plural of þing?).--195.200.70.22 15. febrúar 2008 kl. 06:34 (UTC)
replies: text: ::: Hmm. The assemblies lost their function in the middle ages. The office of sýslumaður was established with Járnsíða in 1271 although people continued to use the old þing-names, in reality these were sýslur (counties). The counties were offices granted by the king. So in effect, the sýslur were already established in 1271. However, e.g. the abovementioned Strandasýsla is not mentioned in any written sources until the 1500s. As the counties were in effect non-hereditary fiefs of the sheriffs they could be variable, so that e.g. the sheriff of Ísafjarðarsýsla would also keep Strandasýsla or Barðastrandarsýsla from time to time (all three were part of Þorskafjarðarþing). And the sheriff of Snæfellsnesssýsla (in Þórsnesþing) could also double as sheriff of Strandasýsla or Barðastrandasýsla. The sheriff was responsible for appointing courts, he acted as arbitrer, tax collector, police chief etc. In effect he exercised all the official functions at the local level. In some cases, the signature of the lawman for the area was necessary to ratify the decisions of the sheriff, but in effect the sheriff reigned supreme in his county. And btw. the plural of þing is þing . --Akigka 15. febrúar 2008 kl. 09:50 (UTC)
replies: text: :::: So there were more sýslur than there were þing and later on, when Iceland was divided into single- or double-seat constituencies along the county lines in the middle of the 19th century, some of the counties were split in two. Therefore you have Norður-Ísafjarðarsýsla and Vestur-Ísafjarðarsýsla, Austur-Barðastrandarsýsla and Vestur-Barðastrandarsýsla etc. etc. --Akigka 15. febrúar 2008 kl. 09:55 (UTC)
The two assemblies held at each thing were vorþing (spring assembly - 4-7 days in May) and haustþing or leiðarþing (autumn assembly - in July-August). At the spring assembly people gathered to go over and prepare the cases their chieftains would present at the Alþingi in the summer. The spring events were very important and divided into two assemblies dómþing (court assembly) that acted as the lowest court level, and skuldaþing (debt assembly) where people paid fees for various purposes. At the autumn assembly they gathered to hear news, decrees etc. from the Alþingi. These were generally not as important as the vorþing. --Akigka 14. febrúar 2008 kl. 14:17 (UTC)
thread_title: Local Assemblies

message: In the context of the regions, you mentioned the Icelandic term landshlutar. So far, I have only seen the term landsvæði.--195.200.70.22 15. febrúar 2008 kl. 07:32 (UTC)
replies: text: Both terms are used for these 8 regions. These days, the division seems to be purely for statistic purposes at the Statistics Office and they call them landsvæði but I don't believe that is written in stone. They just had to call them something. --Bjarki 16. febrúar 2008 kl. 00:24 (UTC)
thread_title: Regions