The Laws of Early Iceland, Gr‡g‡s II. Edited and translated by Andrew Dennis, Peter Foote, and Richard Perkins. University of Manitoba Icelandic Studies, V. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 453. $74.95.

The Laws of Early Iceland, Gr‡g‡s I, began the important collaborative work of Dennis, Foote, and Perkins. That translation of Gr‡g‡s, the earliest medieval Icelandic text, was a pioneer work; it made difficult and obscure material accessible to legal and social historians, and to people who work in Germanic studies but cannot read Old Icelandic. The Laws of Early Iceland, Gr‡g‡s II, concludes this translation. These two volumes together provide a translation of the laws of the Icelandic Commonwealth, the period that began with the adoption of Ulflj—tr's law in A.D. 930 and ended with the ratification of the Treaty of Union with Norway in 1262. While we do not know just how much of Ulflj—tr's law was derived or adapted from Norwegian law, we do know that what we call Gr‡g‡s was first written down in 1117-1118; however, the earliest manuscript fragments date from 1150. There are two main manuscripts; the first, GKS 1157 fol., the Codex Regius, called Konungsb—kby Icelandic scholars and referred to as K, is believed to have been written about 1260. The second, AM 334 fol., called Stadarh—lsb—k, and referred to as St, was written around 1280.

Jana K. Schulman
Western Michigan University