ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the impact relocating lawthings from rural to urban locations had on the organisation of rural jurisdictions and urban hinterlands. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries most of the Norwegian rural lawthings were relocated to coastal towns. Before Christianity, in the Norse world the thing was the most important societal meeting place, both locally and regionally. The pre-Christian thing, however, was not purely a legal body, as it is in modern times. It also held political, economic and cultic authority. Separate trade laws, Bjarkøyretter, developed at the latest from around ad 1000. Compared to Europe, the degree of urbanisation in Scandinavia was low, particularly in Norway. In 1135 the English chronicler Ordericus Vitales knew only six civitas in the Kingdom of Norway: Konghelle, Borg, Oslo, Tønsberg, Bergen and Nidaros. According to Historia Norwegie, Norway was divided into three main geographic areas: The Coastal Land, the Central or Mountain Land and the land of the Sami people.
