On Wednesday 2 March Jóhanna Þ. Guðmundsdóttir, archivist at the National Archives of Iceland, will give the talk “Farmers write to the king: the records of the First Land Commission, 1770–1771” in the lecture series Íslensk bóksaga (Icelandic Book History), held in the lecture hall of Þjóðarbókhlaða, the library building at Arngrímsgata 3, 12:05–12:45.
The abstract of the talk says:
The First Land Commission was a commission of three men sent to Iceland by the king in 1770 to investigate conditions in the country. The commission was to be in contact with the people of Iceland, both high and low. Officials were given specific questions, while the public was encouraged to write about anything they most wished.
The commission left a sizeable body of records, about 4,200 handwritten pages on a wide range of subjects: letters and reports that reached the commission from farmers, priests, district magistrates and other officials from many parts of the country, as well as the minutes and opinions of the commissioners themselves. The National Archives of Iceland is now preparing a complete edition of these documents in cooperation with Sögufélag (the Icelandic Historical Society) and the Danish National Archives. The talk will examine this large body of records of the Land Commission. It will discuss the social position of the letter writers, the main complaints in the letters and how they give a unique insight into conditions in the country around 1770.
Everyone welcome
