An Icelandic lawspeaker lost his job because his voice was too weak.

1002

He had to recite the law from memory at the Althing, a third each summer — and Grímr Svertingsson simply could not be heard.

◍ Show on the globe

The event

• The first Althing meets at Þingvellir930 · Þingvellir, Iceland. In 930 Iceland's Norse settlers began gathering each summer in the Þingvellir valley to make laws and settle disputes, with a lawspeaker reciting the law from memory, a third each year. The Althing met there until 1800, and Iceland's parliament still bears the name.

11th century

More amazing facts

• 999 Pope Sylvester II's love of mathematics earned him a sorcerer's reputation.
• 1000 One elephant bird egg held as much as 160 chicken eggs.
• 1000 · 1057 The oldest book of Rus was found only in 2000: three wax tablets with psalms from early 11th-century Novgorod.
• 1000 · 1021 Vikings reached America at about the time Polynesians reached Hawaii.
• 1002 · 1010 The two great women of Japanese classical literature did not get on. Murasaki Shikibu, author of Genji, wrote that Sei Shōnagon of The Pillow Book was 'dreadfully conceited' and littered her writing with Chinese characters.
• 1004 Europe first saw the fork as a sin. When a Byzantine bride married into the Doge’s family around 1004 and ate with a golden fork, Saint Peter Damian denounced her decadence.

All amazing facts (1058) →