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| This article is part of the Scandinavia series |
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A ting, also thing or žing, was the governing assembly in Germanic societies, made up of the free men of the community. Today the term lives on in the official names of national legislatures, political and judicial institutions in the North-Germanic countries. The German Tag (day, as in Bundestag the German parliament or Tagung) is called so because tings were held at daylight and often lasted all day.
In the pre-Christian clan-culture of Scandinavia the members of a clan were obliged to avenge injuries against their dead and mutilated relatives. A balancing structure was necessary to reduce tribal feuds and avoid social anarchy. We know from the North-Germanic cultures the balancing institution as the ting although similar assemblies are reported also from other Germanic peoples.
The ting was the assembly of the free men of a wapentake or hundred (hundare/härad/herred). Hierarchies of tings could exist, so that the local tings were represented at the ting for a larger area, for a province or land. At the ting, disputes were solved and political decisions were made. The place for the ting was often also the place for public religious rites and for commerce.
The ting met at regular intervals, legislated, elected chieftains, and judged according to the law, memorized and recited by the "law speaker" (the judge). The ting's negotiations were presided over by the law speaker or the chieftain. In reality the ting was of course dominated by the most influential members of the community, the heads of clans and wealthy families, but in theory one-man one-vote was the rule.
The island of Gotland, as an example, had in late medieval time twenty tings, each represented at the island-ting called landsting by its elected judge. New laws were decided at the landsting, which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole. The landsting's authority was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order in 1398. In late medieval time the ting-court consisted of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants.
The assembly of the ting was typically held at a specially designated place, often a field or common, like žingvellir , the old place of the Icelandic Ting. The parliament of the Isle of Man, is still named after meeting place of the ting, Tynwald, which etymologically is the same word as "žingvellir". In Sweden there are several places named Tingvalla , which is the modern Swedish form of "žingvellir".
In Yorkshire and the Danelaw, wapentakes had been in archaic, public records use until recently. Several of the homes ending in the "by"(village) placename suffix originally possessed their own law(bylaw) and jurisdiction under the auspices of the wapentake in which they served, often over a surrounding ground called a "thorpe"(hamlet). If there was a riding surrounding the wapentake, the wapentake would merely be a local assembly coordinating the power of the Riding, which in JorvikJorvik was the Viking name for the English city of York. York had been founded as the Roman legionary fortress of Eboracum and revived as the Anglo-Saxon trading port of Eoforwic''. It was first captured by Swedish-led Danish Vikings in AD 866 and became's case, would be under the king's command at what is now King's Square in YorkThis article is about the English city. For other meanings, see York (disambiguation). York is a city in the north of England built at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss. In 1991 the city had a population of 123,126. Its geographic coordinates are. The Kingdom of East AngliaNorfolk and Suffolk, the core area of East Anglia. Cambridgeshire is to the west and Essex to the south. East Anglia is a region of eastern England. It has no official status, and the boundaries of East Anglia are undefined. It includes the counties of No was in control of the Danelaw which had been organised as the Five Boroughs. Those Five were martial lawMartial law is the system of rules that takes effect (usually after a formal declaration) when a particular situation requires that a military authority take control of the normal administration of justice (and usually of the whole state). Martial law is fortresses defending land against WessexWessex was one of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (the Heptarchy) that preceded the kingdom of England. It was named after the West Saxons and situated in the south and southwest of England. It existed from the 6th century until the emergence of the, with LindseyLindsey is a traditional subdivison of Lincolnshire in England, which includes most the urbanised areas. It was named for the Kingdom of Lindsey. The division was recognised by Parliament in 1888 when it was given its own county council (along with the ot having its own share of three ridings akin to Yorkshire.
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