Note 163 — SECTION IV. POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF ICELAND.
Reading edition
The name of this Icelandic code of laws, which must not be confounded with the Grágás of Norway, is variously explained from the grey binding or from being written with a grey goose-quill. It was adopted in Iceland in A.D. 1118, and it contained a Lex de ejusmodi mendicis (sturdy vagrants) impune castrandis. Some writers suppose that the Icelandic Commonwealth had written laws but no code. After the union with Norway the island received its first written code, the Iron-side, Járn-Síða (A.D. 1262-1272), and this was exchanged in A.D. 1272 for the Jónsbók, so termed from John the Lawyer who brought it from Norway. Uno Von Troil (p. 73) removes the date of the latter to A.D. 1272.