Frostating
Encyclopedia
Frosta
Frosta is the smallest municipality in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The administrative centre is the village of Frosta. The municipality is located in the middle of the Trondheimsfjord, on a peninsula just north of Trondheim...
municipality in the county
Counties of Norway
Norway is divided into 19 administrative regions, called counties . The counties form the primary first-level subdivisions of Norway and are further divided into 430 municipalities...
of Nord-Trøndelag
Nord-Trøndelag
is a county constituting the northern part of Trøndelag in Norway. As of 2010, the county had 131,555 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth-least populated county. The largest municipalities are Stjørdal, Steinkjer—the county seat, Levanger, Namsos and Verdal, all with between 21,000 and...
.
Tinghaugen
Tinghaugen, from the Old NorseOld Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
words ting meaning assembly and haugr meaning hill, is close to the mediaeval church at Logtun
Logtun Church
Logtun Church is a medieval church in the village of Logtun in the municipality of Frosta in Nord-Trøndelag county, Norway. The church is now owned by the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Norwegian Monuments, but it is still used for baptisms, wedding ceremonies, some religious services,...
. The site is represented by the Frostatinget bautasten at Tinghaugen.
Frostating was arguably Norway's oldest court. Frostating covered the 8 counties in Trøndelag
Trøndelag
Trøndelag is the name of a geographical region in the central part of Norway, consisting of the two counties Nord-Trøndelag and Sør-Trøndelag. The region is, together with Møre og Romsdal, part of a larger...
Norðmærafylki, Naumdælafylki and in a later time also Hålogaland
Hålogaland
Hålogaland was the northernmost of the Norwegian provinces in the mediaeval Norse sagas. In the early Viking Age, before Harald Fairhair, Hålogaland was a petty kingdom extending between Namdalen in Nord-Trøndelag and Lyngen in Troms.-Etymology:...
. When Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
was united as a kingdom
Monarchy
A monarchy is a form of government in which the office of head of state is usually held until death or abdication and is often hereditary and includes a royal house. In some cases, the monarch is elected...
(900–1030), the existing lagting
Lagting
Lagting, literally "Law Ting", can refer to:*Lagting, the Parliament of Åland*Lagting, the former quasi-upper house of the parliament of Norway *Løgting, the parliament of the Faroe Islands...
s were constituted as superior regional assemblies, Frostating being one of them. These were representative assemblies at which delegates from the various districts in each region met to award legal judgments and pass laws.
The first germs of democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
evolution
Evolution (term)
The English noun evolution refers to any kind of gradual change.It is used in biology, of biological evolution, in economics, historical linguistics, and many other technical fields where systems develop or change gradually over time, e.g...
appeared in matters of law. The ancient regional assemblies - Frostating, Gulating
Gulating
Gulaþing is both the name of one of the first Norwegian legislative assemblies or Þing and one of the present day law courts of western Norway.-History:...
and Eidsivating
Eidsivating
Eidsivating was the name of one of the original Norwegian popular assemblies or Tings. Historically it was the site of court and assembly for eastern parts of Norway....
- were eventually joined into a single jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
, and King Magnus Lagabøte
Magnus VI of Norway
Magnus VI Lagabøte or Magnus Håkonsson , was king of Norway from 1263 until 1280.-Early life:...
had the existing body of law put into writing (1263-1280). This compilation of codified law which applied throughout the realm was exceptional for its time, and remained in force until Frederik III, king of the Dano-Norwegian personal union
Personal union
A personal union is the combination by which two or more different states have the same monarch while their boundaries, their laws and their interests remain distinct. It should not be confused with a federation which is internationally considered a single state...
, promulgated absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy
Absolute monarchy is a monarchical form of government in which the monarch exercises ultimate governing authority as head of state and head of government, his or her power not being limited by a constitution or by the law. An absolute monarch thus wields unrestricted political power over the...
in 1660. This was codified in the King Act of 1665 which functioned as the constitution
Constitution of Norway
The Constitution of Norway was first adopted on May 16, 1814 by the Norwegian Constituent Assembly at Eidsvoll , then signed and dated May 17...
of the Union of Denmark-Norway until 1814.
Frostating seal
King Magnus Lagabøte carried out a great effort to modernise the law-code, which gave him his epithet, Magnus the law-mender (Magnús lagabœtir). In 1274, Magnus promulgated the new national law (Landslov), a unified code of laws to apply for the Kingdon of Norway, including the Faroe islandsFaroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
and Shetland. This replaced the different regional laws which had existed before. A unified code of laws for a whole country had until then only been introduced in the Kingdom of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
in the Liber Augustalis
Constitutions of Melfi
The Constitutions of Melfi, or Liber Augustalis, were a new legal code for the Kingdom of Sicily promulgated on 1 September 1231 by Emperor Frederick II. It was given at Melfi, the town from which Frederick's Norman ancestors had first set out to conquer the Mezzogiorno two centuries earlier...
promulgated in 1231 by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
and the Fuero Real compiled during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X of Castile
Alfonso X was a Castilian monarch who ruled as the King of Castile, León and Galicia from 1252 until his death...
.
The Frostating seal (Frostatingseglet) shows king Magnus Lagabøte seated on his throne and giving the lawman the new Frostating's law (Frostatingsloven) at the Frostating . The seal commemorates Magnus's great effort to modernise the law-code. The representatives to the Thing—three deep—stand on the king's left side. The king sits in the middle on his throne with a crown on his head and a scepter in his hand, and with the Norwegian lion under his foot. Below in the seal are two bowmen; one aiming at a squirrel while the other aims at a bird. Both the squirrel and the bird sit in trees. The original of the Frostating seal is in the Diplomatarium Norvegicum, a source collection of Norwegian letters and documents from earliest recorded history until 1570. The seal is found on a document dated June 1, 1453, in Dipl. Norv. VIII no. 349 .
Other sources
- Keyser R.; Munch P.A. Norges gamle Love indtil 1387 (Christiania: Chr. Gröndahl, 1846)
- Hagland, Jan Ragnar; Sandnes, Jørn Frostatingslova (Oslo: Det Norske Samlaget, 1994)