Althing - Althing

...They organized a religious community around the temple of the leading farmers, hof, and these leading people were called goði (priests). These leading people gathered together to form local assemblies called heraðsthing (meaning "assembly of herað (region)"), and then, around 930, when the undeveloped areas were basically wiped out by population growth, they came together in the island-wide assembly called Althing, and organized the whole island into a system of assemblies at various levels. The resulting structure was divided into four districts, east, west, north and south, each with its own assembly, and each district was further divided into three districts (four in the north district only) with their own assembly, and these 13 regional assemblies in total were presided over by three goðis each. ...

*Some of the terminology explanations that mention "Althing" are listed below.

Source | Heibonsha World Encyclopedia 2nd Edition | Information

…彼らは有力農民の神殿hofを中心に祭祀共同体を組織し，かかる有力者はゴジgoði(司祭)とよばれた。このような有力者は集まって地域的集会heraðsthing(〈ヘラズherað(地域)の集会〉の意)を組織し，さらに人口増によって未開地が基本的に消滅した930年ころに，全島レベルの集会＝アルシングAlthingに結集し，全島をさまざまなレベルの集会の体系に組織した。でき上がった機構は，全体は東西南北の4分区に分けられてそれぞれの集会をもち，各区はさらに三つ(北区のみ四つ)の地域(ヘラズ)に区分されてこれもそれぞれ集会をもち，この計13個の地域集会は，3人ずつのゴジによって主宰された。…

※「アルシング」について言及している用語解説の一部を掲載しています。

出典｜株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典 第２版について | 情報