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Tynwald: A Viking ceremony |
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Thing-Vollr - a Viking parliament
Perhaps the most dramatic, living example of the Viking influence is the island’s parliament: the Tynwald. The name originates from the Old Norse thingvollr - thing meaning assembly and vollr meaning field.
Detail from reconstructed Viking ship
© Courtesy of the Viking Jorvick Centre |
The Tynwald is the longest running parliament in the world, believed to have been permanently established during the reign of Godrad Crovan between 1079 and 1095AD. The Tynwald has managed to survive fundamental change on the Isle of Man, flourishing under both Scottish and English ownership. Counterparts exist throughout Scandinavian occupied lands, the Althing in Iceland and the Lething on the Faroes. However, of the three, only Tynwald has continuously run as a parliament throughout its history.
Although modernisation has been necessary to ensure the parliament’s efficiency, the most auspicious day in the Manx calendar has remained practically unchanged. On old midsummer’s day, 5th July, the Tynwald Ceremony takes place on Tynwald Mount.
The Tynwald Ceremony appears both quaint and breathtakingly daring. It harks back to a time before bureaucracy and centralisation made the distance between officialdom and the masses seem impassable. Unheard of now, yet perfectly preserved, for one day of the year the Manx people can air their grievances to their rulers, just as the Vikings did 1,000 years ago.
View of the Royal Chapel of St John the Baptist
© Courtesy of the Isle of Man Department of Tourism and Leisure |
Each year the ceremony commences with a church service at the Royal Chapel of St John the Baptist in the village of St Johns. With the exception of three or four occasions in its history, St Johns has always been the location for the ceremony. There are references in the ‘Chronicle of the Kings of Man and the Isles’, to the site.
The service is followed by a procession of officials, lead by the Lord of Man to Tynwald Hill, which is actually a man-made, four-tiered mound. It is here that there is a ceremonial ‘fencing’ of the court, which compromises of the Lord of Man and other island officials sitting on the hill; they give a public declaration, in both English and Manx, of the laws passed within the previous 12 months. Historically, no weapons were allowed within the fence.
According to Andrew Johnson, there is no direct reference to Scandinavians or Vikings made during the course of the ceremony, but the survival of the ceremony itself, the names for various officials and the ‘fencing’ of the court, demonstrates their influence to this day.
Regarded by many, as vicious, lawless pillagers, the Isle of Man and its Tynwald ceremony go someway to changing popular opinion about the Vikings, and provide the island with a piece of living history.
Your comments
1 Dafydd Marriott from Sweden - 12 November 2003
"The Swedish variety of these mounds of justice, is best illustrated by "Ting Högar", Uppsala, Sweden. Three identical man-made mounds from where justice or court was held.
"
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