Lawspeaker

A lawspeaker or lawman (Swedish: lagman, Old Swedish: laghmaþer or laghman, Danish: lovsigemand, Norwegian: lagmann, Icelandic: lög(sögu)maður [ˈlœɣ(ˌsœːɣʏ)ˌmaːðʏr̥], Faroese: løgmaður, Finnish: laamanni, Greenlandic: inatsitinuk) is 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. At first, lawspeakers represented the people, and their duties and authority were connected to the assemblies (things). For most of the last thousand years, however, they were part of the king's administration.

Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) of Iceland was a famous lawspeaker. He wrote about an 11th-century lawspeaker named Torgny, but historians doubt the account.