As the community grew older it became apparent that something more than local chiefs and Things were imperatively needed if any sort of peace was to be preserved and some kind of order to be established. And thus there was called into being in A.D. 930 the most famous parliament of the North--the Allthing, that assembled every year under the clear sky, by the banks of a little stream where the horizon was formed by the wild rocky hills of Thingvellir. From all over the island men came for practically every purpose for which human beings can gainfully meet. Laws were made and declared, law cases were decided; tales were recited and much was bought and sold. But the only official of the Republic was the Speaker of the Law, the jurisdiction was purely moral. Administrative machinery, civil service, navy or army there were none. He who refused to obey could but be outlawed.[12] No doubt this essentially Teutonic reform brought vast improvement on the lawless violence of earlier days, but the respect entertained for law still left very much to be desired. The famous _Saga of the Burnt Njal_ gives a truly Homeric account of proceedings at the Allthing itself. Flosi and certain others who were on trial for arson and manslaughter were on the point of getting off by the kind of legal quibble in which Dickens was interested so much. Gizur, one of the plaintiffs, said, "What counsel shall we now take, kinsman Asgrim?" Then Asgrim said, "Now will we send a man to my son Thorhall, and know what counsel he will give us." "Now the messenger comes to Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and tells him how things stood, and how Mord Volgard's son and his friends would all be made outlaws, and the suits for manslaughter be brought to nought. "But when he heard that, he was so shocked at it that he could not utter a word. He jumped up then from his bed, and clutched with both hands his spear, Skarphedinn's gift, and drove it through his foot.... Now he went out of the booth unhalting and walked so hard that the messenger could not keep up with him, and so he goes until he came to the Fifth Court. There he met Grim the Red, Flosi's kinsman, and as soon as they were met, Thorhall thrust at him with the spear, and smote him on the shield and clove it in twain, but the spear passed right through him, so that the point came out between his shoulders. Then there was a mighty cry all over the host, and then they shouted their war-cries. "Flosi and his friends then turned against their foes, and both sides egged on their men fast.