Near Eivindvik, at a place called Flolid, farmers from western Norway gathered once a year for roughly 400 years. From around 900 to 1300, the Gulatinget was one of the most powerful assemblies in Scandinavia: a parliament before the word existed.
Farmers came here to settle disputes, discuss taxation, decide on road building, and pass judgement in criminal cases. The assembly covered all of present-day Vestland county. When Norway unified as a kingdom, four regional assemblies held supreme legal authority: Frostating, Gulating, Eidsivating, and Borgarting. The Older Gulating Law, possibly first written down during the reign of Olav Kyrre (1066-1093), is the oldest surviving record of Norwegian law.
People who emigrated from western Norway carried this tradition with them. The Icelandic Althingi and the Faroese Løgting were both modelled on the Gulating. A millennium site at Flolid, opened in 2005, marks the place where it all began.
Farmers came here to settle disputes, discuss taxation, decide on road building, and pass judgement in criminal cases. The assembly covered all of present-day Vestland county. When Norway unified as a kingdom, four regional assemblies held supreme legal authority: Frostating, Gulating, Eidsivating, and Borgarting. The Older Gulating Law, possibly first written down during the reign of Olav Kyrre (1066-1093), is the oldest surviving record of Norwegian law.
People who emigrated from western Norway carried this tradition with them. The Icelandic Althingi and the Faroese Løgting were both modelled on the Gulating. A millennium site at Flolid, opened in 2005, marks the place where it all began.