Lawspeaker

The Lawspeaker is a unique officer position in Ealdormere. Unlike other officers, the lawspeaker is not beholden to the Crown, but the people. They act as a facilitator to help resolve conflicts and concerns outside of officer-oriented roles.

The Lawspeaker also organizes the Kingdom Moot, to be held each reign, where members of the Kingdom can stand and speak their minds on any matters that concern them.

Lawspeaker in History

A lawspeaker (Old Norse: lǫgsǫgumaðr) was a unique Scandinavian legal office. It has its basis in a common Germanic oral tradition, where wise people were asked to recite the law, but it was only in Scandinavia that the function evolved into an office.

In Iceland, the office was introduced in 930, when the Althing was established. The lawspeaker was elected for three years. Besides the function as the president of the thing, the lawspeaker's duties were restricted to counselling and to reciting the law. It was the sole government office of the mediaeval Icelandic Commonwealth. The lawspeaker was elected for a term of three years and was supposed to declaim the law at the Althing, a third of it each summer. Apart from his function as a lawsayer and chairman of the court, the lawspeaker had no formal power, but he would often be appointed as an arbitrator in the frequently arising disputes. The office lingered on for a few years in the transitional period after 1262, after which it was replaced with a lǫgmaðr. The traditional date for the founding of the Althing is 930 with Úlfljótr appearing as a founding figure and the original author of the laws.