It remains to speak of one great home of Viking civilisation to which more than one reference has been made in previous chapters, viz. Iceland. The story of its settlement is a very simple one. It commenced about 870, when many great Norwegian noblemen sought there for themselves and their followers a freer life than they could obtain under the growing power of Harold Fairhair. It was greatly strengthened by settlers both from Norway and from Ireland and the Western Islands when that power was firmly established by the battle of Hafrsfjord, and by the year 930 the settlement was practically complete. Iceland was more purely Scandinavian than any other settlement made during the Viking age. Here we have not the case of one civilisation grafted on another and earlier one as in England, Ireland or the Frankish empire, but the transference of the best and finest elements in a nation to new and virgin soil where, for good or ill, they were free to develop their civilisation on almost entirely independent lines. Settlers from the Western Islands and from Ireland may have brought Celtic elements, and Christianity was not without influence, when it was introduced from Norway at the close of the 10th century, but on the whole we see in Iceland just what Viking civilisation was capable of when left to itself. At first the settlers lived in almost complete isolation, political and religious, from one another, but they soon found that some form of organisation was necessary and groups of settlers began by choosing from among their number a _goði_, or chieftain, half-priest, half-leader, who was the speaker at their moot and their representative in negotiation with neighbouring groups. Then, continued disputes and the lack of a common law led to the establishment of a central moot or _alþing_, with a speaker to speak one single law for all. But the Norsemen were much better at making constitutions and enacting laws than they were at observing them when instituted, and the condition of Iceland has been vividly if roughly summarised as one of 'all law and no government.' The local _þings_ or the national _alþing_ might enact perfect laws, but there was no compelling force, except public opinion, to make them be obeyed. Even the introduction of Christianity made no difference: the Icelanders quarrelled as bitterly over questions of ecclesiastical as of civil law and the authorities of the medieval Church were scandalised by their anarchic love of freedom. In the words of Professor Ker 'the settlers made a commonwealth of their own, which was in contradiction to all the prejudices of the middle ages and of all ancient and modern political philosophy; a commonwealth which was not a state, which had no government, no sovereignty.' 'It was anarchy without a police-constable.' The result was that the rich men grew richer, the poor became poorer, the smaller gentry died out and the large estates fell into fewer and fewer hands. The great men quarrelled