Ísland til leigu: átök og andstæður 1350-1375.
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Á Íslandi hefur saga þriðja fjórðungs 14. aldar (1350–1375) einkum verið sögð í samhengi við leiguhirðstjóra, sem svo eru nefndir í sagnfræðiritum frá seinni öldum. Í kennslubókum og yfirlitsritum hefur barátta gegn leiguhirðstjórn verið sett í samhengi við sjálfstæðisbaráttu Íslendinga gagnvart erlendu valdi, en einnig tengd við einstaka stórviðburði, og þá sérstaklega Grundarbardaga árið 1361. Hér er vakin athygli á öðru samhengi þessa fyrirkomulags og verður einkum lögð áhersla á þrennt: Í fyrsta lagi túlkun á þeim heimildum sem við höfum um stjórnmálasögu þessa tímabils, því að þeim ber ekki saman um veigamikla þætti þessa fyrirkomulags. Í öðru lagi valdapólitík einstakra höfðingja og stöðu ólíkra landshluta gagnvart valdsmönnum en þessi þáttur er fyrirferðarmikill í frumheimildum þó að hann hafi hlotið minni athygli sagnfræðinga á seinni öldum. Í þriðja lagi verður stefna konungs gagnvart Íslandi greind nánar og þá einkum hvaða áhrif hún hafði á val umboðsmanna.
ICELAND ”FOR RENT”
Around the middle of the 14th century, the administration of Iceland was changed, in that royal agents began to lease the country from the Danish monarchy and themselves to make use of all its taxes and duties. Icelanders have long associated the third quarter of that century with these rental governors and have even linked this administrative arrangement to the country's struggle for independence and to various isolated events, such as the Battle of Grund in 1361. A closer examination of the sources on rented governorship, however, reveals that this conventional understanding was based on relatively few grounds, and thus it is risky to view rented governorship as developing from an older system in which the king's chief advisers and county magistrates accounted directly to him for the collection of taxes and debts. In fact, it is unlikely that rented governorship ever applied exclusively or that it disappeared when the chronicles stopped mentioning it; rather, it probably remained in existence over a long period, as an option to other means of rendering accounts. As for the Battle of Grund, there is no reason to relate it to rented representation of the monarch, because the original sources clearly viewed it in the context of conflicts among the different regions of Iceland, albeit probably more between those in power than among the general populace. The battle might conceivably be explained as one event in a fight for power between two or more groups of chieftains who were competing to represent the king.