The first people believed to have inhabited…

999 CE

The first people believed to have inhabited Iceland were Irish monks or hermits who came in the eighth century, but left with the arrival of Norsemen, who had systematically settled Iceland in the period circa 870-930.

No archaeological finds have been found to support this theory about these monks known as Papar in Iceland.

The first known permanent Norse settler was Ingólfur Arnarson, who had built his homestead in Reykjavík in 874.

Ingólfur had been followed by many other emigrant settlers, largely Norsemen and Irish people they have enslaved.

Most arable land had been claimed by 990 and the Althing, a legislative and judiciary parliament, had been founded as the political hub of the Icelandic Commonwealth.

The earliest Christian observance in the country in all likelihood had begun with the arrival of the first settlers during the settlement of Iceland in the ninth and tenth centuries.

Some of them were from the British Isles and had adopted Christianity through their contact with the Irish.

However, the vast majority of the initial settlers had been pagan, worshipping the Æsir (the Norse gods: among others, Odin, Thor, Freyr and Freyja), and organized Christian observance had probably died out within a generation or so.

However, by the tenth century political pressure from Europe to convert to Christianity had mounted.

Beginning in 980, Iceland had begun to be visited by several missionaries.

The first of these seems to have been an Icelander returning from abroad, one Thorvald Konradsson.

Accompanying Thorvald was a German bishop named Fridrek, about whom little is known.

Thorvaldur's attempt to convert Icelanders had met with limited success.

The subject of ridicule, he had eventually been forced to flee the country after a conflict in which two men had been killed.

Olaf Tryggvason having ascended to the crown of Norway, the effort to Christianize Iceland has intensified.

King Olaf had sent an Icelander named Stefnir Thorgilsson back to his homeland to convert his fellow countrymen.

Stefnir had violently destroyed sanctuaries and images of the heathen gods -- this had made him so unpopular that he had eventually been declared an outlaw.

After Stefnir's failure, Olaf had sent a priest named Thangbrand, an experienced missionary, having proselytized both in Norway and the Faroe Islands.

His mission in Iceland from around 997-999 has been only partly successful.

He has managed to convert several prominent Icelandic chieftains, but has killed two or three men in the process.

Thangbrand returns to Norway in 999 and reports his failure to King Olaf, who immediately adopts a more aggressive stance towards the Icelanders.

He refuses Icelandic seafarers access to Norwegian ports and takes as hostages several Icelanders then dwelling in Norway.

This cuts off all trade between Iceland and its main trading partner.

Some of the hostages taken by King Olaf are the sons of prominent Icelandic chieftains, whom he threatens to kill unless the Icelanders accept Christianity.

As the end of the millennium grows near many leading Icelanders accept the new faith.

The Icelandic Commonwealth's limited foreign policy consists almost entirely of maintaining good relations with Norway.

The Christians in Iceland use the King's pressure to step up efforts at conversion.

The two rival religions soon divide the country and threaten civil war.