The Thing of all Geats (Swedish: ''Alla götars ting'') was the thing (general assembly) which was held from pre-historic times to the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

Skara Skara is a locality and the seat of Skara Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 18,580 inhabitants in 2013. Despite its small size, it is one of the oldest cities in Sweden, and has a long educational and ecclesiastical history. O ...

Västergötland Västergötland (), also known as West Gothland or the Latinized version Westrogothia in older literature, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish), situated in the southwest of Sweden. Vä ...

.The article ''Landsting'', at the official site of the Museum of National Antiquities, Sweden
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060930053606/http://www.historiska.se/histvarld/artikel.asp?id=20990 , date=2006-09-30 . Although its name suggests that it comprised all

Geat The Geats ( ; ; ; ), sometimes called ''Goths'', were a large North Germanic tribe who inhabited ("land of the Geats") in modern southern Sweden from antiquity until the Late Middle Ages. They are one of the progenitor groups of modern Swed ...

s, it concerned those living in

and

Dalsland Dalsland () is a Swedish traditional province, or ''landskap'', situated in Götaland in southern Sweden. Lying to the west of Lake Vänern, it is bordered by Värmland to the north, Västergötland to the southeast, Bohuslän to the west, ...

, and it is described in the Westrogothic law. According to

Ostrogothic law The Ostrogoths () were a Roman-era Germanic people. In the 5th century, they followed the Visigoths in creating one of the two great Gothic kingdoms within the Western Roman Empire, drawing upon the large Gothic populations who had settled in t ...

(Östgötalagen), '' Lionga thing'' was a similar assembly in

Östergötland Östergötland (; English exonym: East Gothland) is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap'' in Swedish) in the south of Sweden. It borders Småland, Västergötland, Närke, Södermanland and the Baltic Sea. In older English li ...

, held in

Linköping Linköping ( , ) is a city in southern Sweden, with around 167,000 inhabitants as of 2024. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Chu ...

in the Middle Ages and somewhere in its vicinity earlier. All free men living in the legislature and who were able to wield a weapon had the right to participate, and the assembly was led by the

lawspeaker A lawspeaker or lawman ( Swedish: ''lagman'', Old Swedish: ''laghmaþer'' or ''laghman'', Danish: ''lovsigemand'', Norwegian: ''lagmann'', Icelandic: , Faroese: '' løgmaður'', Finnish: ''laamanni'', ) is a unique Scandinavian legal offic ...

. It had a Swedish counterpart in

Gamla Uppsala Gamla Uppsala (, ''Old Uppsala'') is a parish and a village outside Uppsala in Sweden. It had 17,973 inhabitants in 2016. As early as the 3rd century AD and the 4th century AD and onwards, it was an important religious, economic and political c ...

named the '' Thing of all Swedes''.

Notes

Scandinavia Thing (assembly) Defunct unicameral legislatures Geats