i

SOCIAL NORMS IN MEDIEVAL ii

BEYOND MEDIEVAL EUROPE Beyond Medieval Europe publishes monographs and edited volumes that evoke medieval Europe’s geographic, cultural, and religious diversity, while highlighting the interconnectivity of the entire region, understood in the broadest sense—from Dublin to Constantinople, Novgorod to Toledo. The individuals who inhabited this expansive territory built cities, cultures, kingdoms, and religions that impacted their locality and the world around them in manifold ways.

Series Editor Christian Alexander Raffensperger, Wittenberg University, Ohio

Editorial Board K urt Villads Jensen, Stockholms Universitet Bal á zs Nagy, Central European University, Budapest Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin, Madison iii

SOCIAL NORMS IN MEDIEVAL SCANDINAVIA

Edited by JAKUB MORAWIEC, ALEKSANDRA JOCHYMEK, AND GRZEGORZ BARTUSIK iv

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

© 2019, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds

The authors assert their moral right to be identiied as the authors of their part of this work.

Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/ 29/ EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 page 2 or that satisies the conditions speciied in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94–553) does not require the Publisher’s permission.

ISBN: 9781641892407 e- ISBN: 9781641892414

www.arc- humanities.org Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY v

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...... viii

Preface ...... ix JAKUB MORAWIEC, ALEKSANDRA JOCHYMEK, GRZEGORZ BARTUSIK

Introduction. The goð ar and “Cultural Politics” of the Years ca. 1000–1150 ...... 1 JÓ N VIÐ AR SIGURÐ SSON

PART I: PRE CHRISTIAN RITUAL PRACTICE AND LITERARY DISCOURSE

Chapter 1. The Use of Silver by the of Truso and : The Logic of the Market or Social Prestige? ...... 19 DARIUSZ ADAMCZYK

Chapter 2. Silk, Settlements, and Society in Íslendingas ö gur ...... 35 ANITA SAUCKEL

Chapter 3. Being Ó ð inn Bursson: The Creation of Social and Moral Obligation in Warrior-Bands through the Ritualized, Oral Performance of Poetry—The Case of Grí mnism á l ...... 51 SIMON NYGAARD

Chapter 4. Elements of Satire and Social Commentary in Heathen Praise Poems and Commemorative Odes ...... 75 DAVID ASHURST

Chapter 5. Friendship and Man’s Reputation: A Case of Odds þ á ttr Ó feigssonar . . . 91 MARTA REYRADLI Ń SKA vi

vi CONTENTS

PART II: RECEPTION AND CULTURAL TRANSFER

Chapter 6. Cultural Transfer of Cognitive Structures of Fortune in the Latin and Old Icelandic Literatures and Languages: The Case of the Metaphor Fortune is a Wheel ...... 103 GRZEGORZ BARTUSIK

Chapter 7. Dating, Authorship, and Generational Memory in Ljó svetninga : A Late Response to Barð i Guð mundsson ...... 139 YOAV TIROSH

Chapter 8. Quid Sigurthus cum Christo? An Examination of ’s Christian Potential in Medieval Scandinavia ...... 155 ŁUKASZ NEUBAUER

Chapter 9. J ó msborg and the German Reception of Jó msv í kinga saga: Introducing Masterhood as a Social Norm ...... 173 MICHAEL IRLENBUSCHREYNARD

PART III: OUTSIDERS AND TRANSGRESSORS

Chapter 10. The Unfamiliar Other: Distortions of Social Cognition Through Disguise in Two Íslendingas ö gur ...... 187 ALEXANDER J. WILSON

Chapter 11. A Deviant Word Hoard: A Preliminary Study of Non-Normative Terms in Early Medieval Scandinavia ...... 201 KEITH RUITER

Chapter 12. Enchanting the Land: Monstrous Magic, Social Concerns, and the Natural World in the Íslendingas ö gur ...... 213 REBECCA MERKELBACH

Chapter 13. Social Margins in Karlamagnú s saga: The Rejection of Poverty . . . . . 229 ALEKSANDRA JOCHYMEK vii

CONTENTS vii

Chapter 14. Þó tti m ǫnnum … hann myndi verð a engi jafnað arma ð r : The Narrator, the Trouble-Maker, and Public Opinion ...... 239 JOANNE SHORTT BUTLER

Chapter 15. Discipline or Punish? Travels and Outlawry as Social Structures in Medieval Iceland ...... 255 MARION POILVEZ

viii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Map 1. Bishop seats and major churches in medieval Iceland...... 7

Map 2. Early dirham inds in Eastern and Northern Europe...... 22

Map 3. Tenth-century dirham inds from ...... 26 Figure 3.1. Detail of reconstruction of the early seventh-century Sutton Hoo helmet-mask...... 58

Figure 3.2. Jens Peter Schjø dt’s ive-phase initiation sequence...... 65

Figure 3.3. The Snoldelev rune stone...... 68 ix

PREFACE

THE RICHNESS AND diversity of the preserved literary tradition, together with the spir- itual and material culture of medieval Scandinavia, have encouraged scholars of various ields to engage in searching analytical enquiry into the histories of past societies of the North. At the same time its disparities and fragmentation leave many aspects without inal answers. This is especially relevant in the case of normative behaviour and rea- soning which are mainly preserved orally, performatively, or ritually, and rarely in a written or material shape, making their transmission dependent on ongoing cultivation. Since no state in the North now follows the laws of past societies, they would have been inaccessible to us if it were not for new research methods that allow us to get a glimpse of these lost worlds preserved fragmentarily on archaeological sites and in literature. For centuries studies undertaken in the ield of –Ic elandic culture have embraced many issues: developments in material culture, religious change, processes of power consolidation, to name only a few. While individual and singular historical events and igures have perhaps for too long been the main subject of historical inqui- ries, the immense corpora of preserved texts and objects can reveal the regularities and recurrences of everyday life of both social elites and ordinary people, embodied in a set of implicit norms that determined behaviour and common understandings of social coexistence. History is built on the great battles and wars, but the past consists in large part of the everyday struggles of ordinary, very often anonymous, people. Values cultivated by them such as honour, prestige, loyalty, idelity, manhood, authority, and duty, were even more important than prescriptive norms superimposed by wishful thinking elites and rulers, because their meaning, practice, and evaluation exceeded legal provisions and law codes, expressed instead in rituals, habits, customs, religion, literature, language, and social cognition, revealing those norms that were actually internalized and performed by the society. These implicit rules and laws ultimately motivated human actions and were cru- cial as much for the pursuit of personal ambitions and goals as for everyday survival. There are numerous instances in which Scandinavian literature of the can be used to reveal the core meaning of these ideas. It is a rich source of representations of characters both maintaining and obeying the norms, as well as transgressing and breaking them. The Icelandic , the Sagas of Icelanders ( Íslendingas ö gur ) in particular, consti- tute the main source of insight into the normative phenomena of morality, ethics, and legality. Thus, unsurprisingly, the vast majority of chapters of this volume deal with the Old Norse–Icelandic literary corpus and its classical subgenres, Íslendingas ö gur and konungasö gur . Naturally, analyses of particular narratives of the sagas are undertaken here with methodological awareness of certain limitations of the sagas, when it comes to reconstructing the past society in a distant time. The origins of particular stories have x

x PREFACE

their beginnings in now lost oral tradition, whereas most of their literary incarnations are dated to the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries onwards, which were preserved mainly in the manuscripts from the late Middle Ages, (most of them from the four- teenth and ifteenth centuries), and the early Modern Ages. Moreover, their stylistic la- vour, often triggered by a will to provide entertainment rather than genuine historical accounts, and additionally motivated by certain needs and expectations of the potential audience concerning saga characters and their dealings, results in a literary approach to various behaviours and/or social norms rather than allowing us to decipher pure and unaffected insights into the “social reality” of Commonwealth Iceland. Despite these limitations, the Old Norse–Icelandic literary corpus, with Í slendingas ö gur at its helm, remains both the exclusive and the most coherent source of our present-day knowledge of social development in the medieval North. Preserved, compiled, and inally written down by those with their own ancestors in mind, the corpus consists of stories that were told to invoke particular values and norms found to be relevant and reliable, in order to fulill their main role: the preservation of local lore and tradition treated as the main instigator of self-iden tity of the whole community. Literary depiction of social developments in the medieval North can be, to some extent, confronted and corroborated or disproved by the relics of material culture. Such work also requires methodological awareness, particularly when the work is interdisci- plinary. Still, this exclusive insight into speciic aspects of economy, culture and everyday habits of medieval Scandinavians allows one to supplement a picture of the society and its norms with important and intriguing elements. The desire to explore these issues in greater depth stands behind the present volume. Articles collected in this book address varied and complex matters to do with the func- tioning of Scandinavian society, such as lawmaking, pre-Christ ian ritual practices, the symbolic importance of economy and artifacts, the status of the ruler, interpersonal relations (from enmity and conlict to friendship), social cognition, and literary relec- tion on environmental developments. Together they shed light on multifarious aspects of medieval Scandina via normative values and how they changed over time, with the Christianization and Europeanization of Scandinavia as important steps in the develop- ment of northern societies. Several years ago a fruitful cooperation started between the Institute of History at the University of Silesia in Katowice and the Andrzej Kaube Museum in Wolin, which resulted in a cycle of conferences and other scholarly endeavours aimed at popularizing the history of Wolin, the Baltic zone, and Scandinavia in the Middle Ages. The success of the original initiatives inspired representatives of both institutions to introduce a series of cyclical, international, and interdisciplinary conferences known as the Jó msborg Conference. The irst such gathering took place in Wolin on April 20–22, 2017, dedicated to the topic of “Deining and Applying Social Norms in Medieval Scandinavia.” The conference brought together a group of scholars representing various international institutions and disciplines (history, archaeology, linguistics, literary studies, legal studies). The papers presented and the lively discussions that followed resulted in this collection of chapters, which seek to decipher social norms in medieval Scandinavia from a variety of xi

PREFACE xi

angles and their signiicance to everyday life. The editors and contributors believe that research on such a multifaceted and potentially elusive phenomenon calls for coopera- tion between diverse disciplines to conduct a cross-methodolog ical investigation. The book therefore offers the audience a variety of methods, approaches, and, expectedly, results. The structure of the book proposes therefore a division into three thematical sections, preceded by introductory remarks on political developments on eleventh- to twelfth-century Iceland by Jó n Vidar Sigurdsson (University of Oslo).

Part I: Pre-Christian Ritual Practices and Literary Discourses The normative structure of a society is often expressed through its material culture. Certain social practices, trading and fashion among them, are relected in material remains such as coins and clothing. Dariusz Adamczyk (German Historical Institute in Warsaw), in an article entitled “The Use of Silver by the Scandinavians of Truso and Wolin: The Logic of the Market or Social Prestige?,” uses silver inds from these ports-of- trade as his point of departure for discussing the varied roles of silver and different eco- nomic, social, and political contexts of its usage. Anita Sauckel (University of Iceland), in her article entitled “Silk, Settlements and Society in Íslendingas ö gur ,” takes into account clothing and social norms at the -assemblies as depicted in Íslendingas ǫgur , an occasion on which exclusive fabrics played an important role. Social norms are implicit in the texture of certain literary works. The conventions a society follows in its forms of worship, mourning, and commemoration can be iso- lated from the text itself for close examination. Poetry, performed orally and ritually, resembles religious practices by mirroring its structures. Simon Nygaard (University of Aarhus), in an article entitled “Being Ó ð inn Bursson: The Creation of Social and Moral Obligation in Viking Age Warrior-Bands through the Ritualized, Oral Performance of Poetry: The Case of Grí mnism á l ,” argues that pre-Christian Scandinavian rituals fea- tured oral performances of Eddic poetry, that, like ljó ð ah á ttr poems (e.g. Grí mnism á l ) contained ritualized performatives, crucial to the formation and upholding of pre- Christian Scandinavian religions. Mourning practices were captured by a distinctive subgenre of skaldic poetry, the funerary ode. David Ashurst (University of Durham), in his article entitled “Elements of Satire and Social Commentary in Heathen Praise Poems and Commemorative Odes,” discusses the submerged and pervasive strains of satire and commentary on social norms in tenth-century funerary odes composed amid the intellectual turmoil of the late heathen period. The main focus is laid on Eirí ksm á l , Eyvindr ská ldaspillir’s Há konarm á l and the group of Egill Skalla-Gr í msson’s utterances (particularly Sonatorrek but reference is also made to Arinbjarnarkvið a and Hö fu ð lausn ) . The ideals embodied in the roles of friend, warrior, and king were among the most important of Old Norse–Icelandic society, as relected in its tales of people succeeding or failing to live up to them. They are characterized by binary thinking such as the distinctions good versus bad friend / warrior / king; a mode of expression which is regularly encountered in the Icelandic sagas. In an article entitled “Friendship and Man’s Reputation: A Case of Odds þ á ttr Ó feigssonar ,” Marta Rey-Radli ń ska (Jagiellonian xii

xii PREFACE

University) provides a case study based on one of the þæ ttir preserved in the Morkinskinna, the oldest collection of the kings’ sagas. The analysis focuses both on the motive of friendship in the story and the stylistic devices used to achieve an emotional effect—a deviation from objectivity in the narrative, and deployment of language that highlights negative emotions.

Part II: Reception and Cultural Transfer Human behaviour is primarily inluenced by cognitive processes, with metaphorical thinking at the core of human understanding of the world, inluencing our experi- ence of being in the world. Grzegorz Bartusik (University of Silesia in Katowice), in an article entitled “Cultural Transfer of Cognitive Structures of Fortune in the Latin and Old Icelandic Literatures and Languages: The Case of the Metaphor Fortune is a Wheel, ” explores questions concerning inluences of Latin culture on Old Norse–Icelandic language and literature and the potential inluence of classical ideas on Old Norse– Icelandic ones. He looks for evidence of the transfer of social norms, in the form of cog- nitive metaphors, from continental Europe in the sagas of antiquity ( Antikensagas ) and the vernacular sagas. With the increasing alphabetization introduced to Scandinavia by the Catholic Church and the development of written literature, Scandinavians adapted new literary modes of commemoration and cultivation of social memory through the medium of written language. The commemorative function of a saga is analyzed by Yoav Tirosh (University of Iceland), who, in “Dating, Authorship, and Generational Memory in Ljó svetninga saga: A Late Response to Barð i Guð mundsson,” returns to the hypothesis that Þ ó r ð r Þ orvar ð sson was the author of Ljó svetninga saga, and, interpreting it through the prism of the thirteenth-century society that generated the text, emphasizes its func- tional value as a form of cultural memory. Ł ukasz Neubauer (Koszalin University of Technology), in “Quid Sigurthus cum Christo? An Examination of Sigurd’s Christian Potential in Medieval Scandinavia,” examines various features of Sigurd Fá fnisbani’s character that might have inluenced the transformation of the legendary Germanic hero into the essentially St. George-like igure depicted by the anonymous late twelfth- or early thirteenth-century artist respon- sible for carvings on the portal doors of the Hylestad stave church. The society depicted in sagas, with its norms, values, and behaviours, has attracted not only scholars but also people of widely deined culture and politics for centuries. It resulted, inevitably, with its idealization and rise of certain myths deining the Viking Age and the Middle Ages in the North as a golden era, free from evil and deceit of the contem- porary world. Such attitude can be traced in numerous means of art (painting, literature) and political views that have been produced throughout recent centuries. Even if the pic- ture it provided was biased, unreliable, and hence rejected by present-day scholarship, its popularity serves to inspire research questions aiming to ind deeper and more coherent understanding of the phenomenon. Michael Irlenbusch-Reynard (University of Bonn), in his article “Jó msborg and the German Reception of Jó msv í kinga saga: Introducing Masterhood as a Social Norm,” examines the legend of the famous warrior band in the xiii

PREFACE xiii

context of the political and ideological conditions of late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Germany. Various works of propaganda that used the saga as a crucial point of reference were responsible for an important transformation in the depiction of Jó msborg— from the residence of a romantic warrior community to the symbolic afirma- tion of a genuine Germanic socio-cultural institution, culminating in the suggestion of a normative epicentre for the whole North.

Part III: Outsiders and Transgressors Sometimes, we are only able to distinguish a normative code when it is being transgressed. A norm is known by what it is not: a deviance, perversity, monstrosity, or rejection. Alexander J. Wilson (University of Durham), in his article “The Unfamiliar Other: Distortions of Social Cognition Through Disguise in Two Í slendingas ö gur , ” analyzes the way in which two narratives, Droplaugarsona saga and Fó stbr œ ð ra saga, portray violent conlicts between different communities as expressions of the distortion of social cognition. This serves as a method of interpreting the way people constructed and deployed identity at various levels, both individually and within their communities, to structure perceptions of the world around them. Keith Ruiter (University of Nottingham), in his article “A Deviant Word Hoard: A Preliminary Semantic Study of Non-Normative Terms in Early Medieval Scandinavia,” considers some of the particular lexical choices in early medieval Scandinavian texts in order to better understand the contemporary web of associations surrounding devi- ance and deviants. Utilizing philological, historical, literary, and legal methodologies, the article sets out to consider some words used to describe non-n ormative peoples and behaviours in three categories: terms relating to law, honour, and morality. Rebecca Merkelbach (University of Zurich), in an article entitled “Enchanting the Land: Monstrous Magic, Social Concerns, and the Natural World in the Íslendingas ö gur ,” analyzes the way magic-users in Íslendingas ö gur are depicted as socially monstrous igures operating within and through the natural world to cause harm to society. The thirteenth and four- teenth centuries were a time of growing climatic variability, which must have caused signiicant anxiety to contemporary Icelanders, an anxiety that found its expression in the monstrous practitioners of magic. Aleksandra Jochymek (University of Silesia in Katowice), in “Social Margins in Karlamagnú s saga: The Rejection of Poverty,” examines the two sides of medieval poverty in Scandinavian society, as expressed through the Historia Caroli Magni et Rotholandi and its northern counterpart, translated into a part of Karlamagnú s saga. In the Icelandic sagas there are several distinctive igures who put laws to the test by breaking them. Trouble-makers and outlaws hold a prominent place among them. In “ Þó tti m ǫnnum … hann myndi verð a engi jafnað arma ð r : The Narrator, the Trouble-Maker, and Public Opinion,” Joanne Shortt Butler (University of Cambridge) explores the ways in which public opinion is invoked by saga narrators through the frequently occurring igure of the ójafna ð arma ð r (“inequitable person”), who is described as acting against the social norms of the society depicted in the sagas. Marion Poilvez (University of Iceland), in “Discipline or Punish? Travels and Outlawry as Social Structures in Medieval xiv

xiv PREFACE

Iceland,” discusses outlawry as a social structure from an inclusive perspective, arguing that many forms of outlawry did not function as outright exclusion, but were social structures made to respond in a didactic way to anti-social behaviours, with the goal of re-educating wrongdoers, or at least providing them with a itting function to suit the dynamics of a given society. The present volume could not have been completed without the contributions and support of particular individuals. We would like to express our deep gratitude towards Ryszard Banaszkiewicz, the head of the Andrzej Kaube Museum in Wolin; Christian Raffensperger, Erin T. Dailey, and Anna Henderson from ARC Humanities Press; Miriam Mayburd from the University of Iceland for her stylistic advice; and all participants of the First Jó msborg Conference. Jakub Morawiec Aleksandra Jochymek Grzegorz Bartusik 1

Introduction

THE GO Ð AR AND “CULTURAL POLITICS” OF THE YEARS CA. 1000–1150 1

Jó n Vi ð ar Sigur ð sson

AS STATED IN the preface, the chapters in this volume address numerous and intri- cate questions regarding Old Norse culture; rituals, social ties, social norms, outlaws, lawmaking, and cognitive structures. The main sources for the discussion are the Icelandic family sagas, the kings’ sagas, as well as Eddic poetry, laws, and sagas such as Karlamagnús saga . The diversity of topics is the strength of the volume. This is pos- sible due to the exceptional source situation that offers us almost endless opportunities of discussing different aspects of the Old Norse culture. This richness, from a popula- tion which was probably not larger than 50–60,000 during the High Middle Ages, is the main reason for the global interest in this culture. The scholarly debate over the last few decades has to a large extent focused on the High and Late Middle Ages. Little attention has been paid to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and the events which triggered the processes of the time. That will be the focus of this chapter, and particularly the roles played by the major churches, and Haukdæ lir and Oddaverjar, the two most important goð ar families in the Free State Society (930–1262/64). The introduction of Christianity in the year 999/1000 will mark the beginning of the period in question, which will last until the foundation of the archbishopric in Nidaros in 1152/5 3.

Ská lholt, Haukadalur, Oddi, and Hó lar Christianity became the oficial religion of Iceland in the year 999/1000. It was the con- trol the goð ar held over the which made this possible. During the following years several foreign bishops arrived in the country, 2 but nothing is known regarding their general impact. In Hungrvaka it is stated that Gizurr Teitsson of the Haukdæ lir family, who had supported the introduction of Christianity, took his son Í sleifr Gizurarson (1006–1080) to the nunnery Herford (Herfurð a) in Westphalia, 3 a renowned centre of learning. 4 He returned ordained as a priest before 1030, and immediately, or soon thereafter, took over the goð or ð his father had controlled. 5 The þá ttr about Í sleifr

1 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, University of Oslo, email: [email protected]. 2 Íslendingab ó k , 18; Jó ns saga ins helga, 177. 3 Hungrvaka, 6; Jó ns saga ins helga, 176–77. 4 Turville- Petre, “Notes on the Intellectual History of Icelanders,” 111. 5 Ísleifs þ á ttr byskups, 335–36. 2

2 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

and Hungrvaka does not mention whether he had been learned in Latin before he trav- elled to Herford. The fact that he belonged to one of the most important families in the country, however, makes it likely that one, or several, of the foreign bishops had tutored him in the language. 6 In the process of Christianization the irst and most important step was to convert the goð ar , which then in the next stage would result in their friends and followers following suit. In 1056, Í sleifr Gizurarson became the irst bishop of Iceland.

And when chieftains and good men perceived that Í sleifr was far abler than other clerics who could then be obtained in this country, many sent him their sons to be educated and had them ordained priests. Two of them were later consecrated bishops: Kolr, who was in Ví k in Norway, and Jó an at Hó lar. Í sleifr had three sons, who all became able chieftains: Bishop Gizurr and the priest Teitr, father of Hallr, and Þ orvaldr. Teitr was brought up by Hallr in Haukadalur, a man whom everyone described as the most generous layman in this country and the most eminent in good qualities. I also came to Hallr when I was seven years old, one year after Gellir Þ orkelsson, my paternal grandfather and my foster-father, died; and I stayed there for fourteen years. 7

In the quotation above from Ari fró ð i Þ orgilsson’s Íslendingab ó k ( the Book of Icelanders) written 1122–1133, it is mentioned that “many” householders sent Í sleifr “their sons to be educated.” Jó ns saga ins helga conirms this and states that many “hǫ f ð ingjar” ( goð ar ) and respectable (“virð ulegir”) men send their sons to Í slei fr to be fostered and educated (“fó strs ok til lærlingar”), and were subsequently ordained as priests. Many of them became “hǫ fu ð kennimenn” (major clerics), and two of them became bishops, Jó n and Kolr. 8 We have little information about the school in Ská lholt, but it is likely that it became an important part of the bishopric’s activity, and it must have been kept on regular basis. When Í sleifr died, his son Gizurr (1042–1118), also educated at Herford, 9 replaced him as bishop in 1082. Kristni saga claims that when Gizurr was bishop, most of the

6 One of the missionaries, Þ angbrandr, not only baptized members of the Haukdæ lir family, he also stayed with Gizurr inn hví ti in Ská lholt ( Íslendingab ó k , 21; Kristni saga, 19, 23–24; Kristniboð Þ angbrands , 137). 7 Íslendingab ó k , 20: “En es þ at sá hǫ f ð ingjar ok gó ð ir menn, at Ísleifr vas miklu ný tri en að rir kennimenn, þ eir es á þ v í sa landi næ ð i, þ á seldu hó num margir sonu sí na til læ ringar ok lé tu ví gja til presta. Þ eir urð u sí ð an ví g ð ir tveir til byskupa, Kollr, es vas í Ví k austr, ok Jó an at Hó lum. Í slei fr á tti þ rj á sonu; þ eir urð u allir hǫ f ð ingjar ný ti r, Gizurr byskup ok Teitr prestr, fað ir Halls, ok Þ orvaldr. Teit fœ ddi Hallr í Haukadali, sá maðr es þ at vas almæ lt, at mildastr væ ri ok á g æ ztr at gó ð u á landi hé r ó l æ r ð ra manna. Ek kom ok til Halls sjau vetra gamall, vetri eptir þ at, es Gellir Þ orkelssonr, fǫ ð urfa ð ir minn ok fó stri, andað isk, ok vask þ ar jó rt á n vetr.” All translations from Íslendingab ó k and Kristni saga are from Íslendingab ó k. Kristni saga. Cf. Jó ns saga ins helga, 181–83. 8 Jó ns saga ins helga, 181. Cf. Kristni saga, 39. The term h ǫf ð ingi was frequently used about goð ar (Jó n Við ar Sigurð sson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 49). 9 Jó ns saga ins helga, 182. 3

INTRODUCTION 3

inluential men in the country were ordained as priests. 10 The saga lists ten men, and out of them as many as seven were goð ar . The high educational level among the goð ar can also been seen in a register from about 1143, probably written by Ari fró ð i Þ orgilsson, 11 which mentions forty of the most signiicant priests in the country. As many as thirteen of the men listed were goð ar , and at the time there were only about twenty-seven goð ar in the country. 12 In addition it is very likely that the other goð ar also were educated as clerics, without being ordained. In the power game it was usu- ally the best son who took over the goð ar , not the oldest. If the goð ar did not have any sons, their power base evaporated. Besides the school in Ská lholt three other active schools in Iceland are known from this period and to ca. 1110: Haukadalur, Oddi, and Hó lar. 13 It is not known when the school in Haukadalur, which was controlled by the Haukdæ lir, was established, but it was probably sometime around 1070. 14 It has been argued that goð i Hallr Teitsson (ca. 1085– 1150) was the author of The First Grammatical Treatise, 15 and goð i Gizurr Hallsson (ca. 1125–1206) might have been the author of Veraldar saga. 16 Gizurr is, as Ari and Sæ mundr from the Oddaverja family, described as “fró ð r mað r. ” 17 He was goð i , lawspeaker and King Sigurð r munnr’s, King Sverrir’s father, stallari. Gizurr was wise (“vitr”) and eloquent (“má lsnjallr”). He travelled often to the continent and was highly esteemed (“betr metinn”) in Rome for his skill and prowess (“mennt sinni ok framkvæmð”). He possessed extensive knowledge about “suð rl ö ndin” (Germany and France) and wrote a book called Flos peregrinationis ( Travel Flowers), in Latin, 18 which unfortunately has been lost. In the prologue to Hungrvaka Gizurr is mentioned as one of the sources. 19 The best-known pupil known to have been educated at the school in Haukadalur is without a doubt the goð i Ari fró ð i Þ orgilsson (1067–1148), who lived at Stað asta ð ur at Ö lduhryggur. He showed his Íslendingab ó k , written 1122–1133, for approval to the

10 Kristni saga, 42–43: “virðingamenn lærðir ok ví g ð ir og lærðir til presta þó at hǫfðingjar væri, svá sem Hallr Teitsson í Haukadal ok Sæ mundr inn fró ð i, Magnú s Þ ó r ð arson í Reykjaholti, Sí mon Jǫ rundarson í Bœi, Guð mundr sonr Brands í Hjar ðarholti, Ari inn fró ð i, Ingimundr Einarsson á Hólum, ok Ketill Þ orsteinsson á Mǫðruvǫllum [in Eyjaj ör ð ur], ok Ketill Guð mundarson, Jó n prestr Þ orvar ð arson ok margir að rir þ ó at eigi sé ritaðir.” 11 Diplomatarium Islandicum I: no. 29. 12 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, “Frá goð or ð um til rí kja: Þ r ó un goð avalds á 12. og 13. ö ld,” 45– 54. 13 Elleh ø j, Studier over den æ ldste norrø ne historieskrivning, 15–84; Bekker-Nielsen, “Den æ ldste tid,” 9–26; Bekker-Nielsen, “Frode mæ nd og tradition,” 35– 41; Jó nas Kristjá nsson, Eddas and Sagas, 117; Guð r ú n Nordal, Íslensk bó kmenntasaga I, 268; Gunnar Harð arson, “Old Norse Intellectual Culture,” 40–41. 14 Hungrvaka, 22. 15 The First Grammatical Treatise, 203. 16 J ó nas Kristjá nsson, Eddas and Sagas, 132. 17 Kristni saga, 3. 18 Sturlunga saga, I:60. 19 Hungrvaka, 3. 4

4 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

bishops Þ orl á kr Runó lfsson in Ská lholt (1118–1133), Ketill Þ orsteinsson (1122–1145) in Hó lar, and the goð i Sæ mundr Sigfú sson fró ð i (the Learned, 1056–1133). 20 S æ mundr, as well as Ari fró ð i and Kolskeggr vitri, contributed to the irst version of Landná mab ó k . 21 Sæmundr, along with his grandson goð i Jó n Loftsson (1124–1197), were two of the most renowned leaders of the Oddaverjar family. This family controlled the church at Oddi, which was to become another important centre of education. A school was established there around 1080 after Sæ mundr returned from studying abroad in either France or Franconia. In addition to being mentioned as one of the authorities consulted by Ari Þ orgilsson when he wrote Íslendingab ó k , Sæ mundr also played an important role when the tithe was introduced in the years 1096/97. He himself wrote a short work about the Norwegian kings in Latin. This is now lost, but was used as a source by later authors, including Snorri Sturluson. 22 Snorri Sturluson, also a goð i , is without a doubt Oddi’s most famous pupil. For both the Haukdælir and the Oddaverjar the schools were not only impor- tant symbols showing off their social position, but they were also important pieces in the power game. By fostering future goðar, the sons of the social elite, the goðar in Haukadalur and Oddi were able to build up a network they could activate in case of disputes. It is striking that schools are not associated with any other goðar families. If we look at the political situation in Iceland around 1100, ive families controlled almost half of the country: Ásbirningar in Skagajörður, Austirðingar and Svínfellingar in the Quarter of the Austirðingar, and Oddaverjar and Haukdælir in the south. The reasons why, for example, the Ásbirningar did not found a school is an open question, which we will not address here. J ó n Ö gmundarson, the irst bishop of Hó lar (1106–21) and a pupil of Bishop Í sleifr, travelled according to his saga widely around Europe, his goal being to observe the ways of good men and to advance his learning. 23 Jó n established a school at Hó lar, and got Gí sli, a man from Sweden (or Gaut) to teach Latin, and Rí kina, a Frenchman, to teach music and poetry. 24 As only one monastery was established in Iceland before 1150, Þ ingeyrar in Hó lar bishopric ca. 1130, the possibility of institutions such as this playing major roles in the process of establishing schools can be ruled out. In the beginning of the twelfth century,

20 Íslendingab ó k , 3. 21 Landná mab ó k , 395. Cfr. Sturlunga saga I:59; Ellehø j, Studier over den æ ldste norrø ne historieskrivning, 15– 84. 22 Turville- Petre, “Notes on the Intellectual History of Icelanders,” 112. Sæ mundr was, accoring to Hungrvaka (16–17), “forvitri og læ r ð r allra manna bezt” (very wise and the most learned of all). See Anderson, “Kings’ Sagas (Konungasö gur),” 197–238; Elleh øj, Studier over den æ ldste norrø ne historieskrivning, 16–25; Foote, Aurvandilstá : Norse Studies, 101–20. 23 Jó ns saga ins helga, 184: “að sjá gó ð ra manna sið u ok ná m sitt at auka.” 24 Jó ns saga ins helga, 217. 5

INTRODUCTION 5

after the foundation of the bishopric at Hólar, there were thus four schools in the country, at Skálholt, Hólar, Haukadalur and Oddi.

The Major Churches 25 Bishop Gizurr shaped the future of the Icelandic Church. In 1096/97, in cooperation with the goð i Sæ mundr fró ð i Sigfú sson and the lawspeaker Markú s Skeggjason, he convinced the Althing to accept the tithe, and that “everyone should reckon up and value all their prop- erty and swear an oath that it was correctly valued, whether it was in land or in movable possessions, and pay a tithe on it afterwards.” Gizurr “also laid down as law that the epis- copal see in Iceland should be at Ská lholt, whereas before it had had no ixed location, and he endowed the see with the estate at Ská lholt and many other forms of wealth both in land and in movable possessions.” Finally, he “gave more than a quarter of his diocese,” that is the Quarter of the Norð lendinga, to the foundation of the Hó lar bishopric, established in 1106. 26 When the tithe was introduced in 1096/97 the number of churches in the country was signiicantly higher than the 330 churches which were chosen to become parish churches, 27 a decision made by the bishops and the goð ar . Churches not becoming parish churches became half-churches ( há l kirkjur), quarter-churches ( jó r ð ungskirkjur ) and chapels ( bæ nh ú s ). In the parish churches mass was to be sung every Sunday and every day during Lent, the Christmas season, and on Ember days. 28 In a half-church, as the name suggests,

25 Ská lholt bishopric: Stað ur in Steingrí msj ö r ð ur; Vatnsjö r ð ur in Vatnsjarð arsveit; Skarð in Skarð sstrandarhreppur; Helgafell in Helgafellssveit; Stað ur in Stað asveit; Hí tardalur in Hraunhreppur; Staholt in Staholtstungur; Gilsbakki in Hví t á rs í ð uhreppur; Garð ar in Akraneshreppur; Bæ r in Bæ jarsveit; Reykholt in Reykholtsdalur; Við ey in Seltjarnarneshreppur; Haukadalur in Biskupstungnahreppur; Oddi in Rangá rvallahreppu r; Breið ab ó lsta ð ur in Fljó tshl í ð ahreppur; Holt in Eyjajallasveit; Þ ykkvab æ jarklaustur in Leið vallahreppur; Kirkjubæ jarklaustur in Kleifahreppur; Sví nafell in Hofshreppur; Rauð al æ kur in Hofshreppur; Valþ j ó fssta ð ir in Fljó tsdalur. Hó lar bishopric: Grenjað arsta ð ir in Reykjadalshreppur; Mú li in Reykjadalshreppur; Há ls in Fnjó skadalshreppur; Munkaþ ver á in Ö ngulssta ð ahreppur; Mö ð ruvellir in Saurbæ jarhreppur; Saurbæ r in Saurbæ jarhreppur; Hrafnagil in Hrafnagilshreppur; Mö ð ruvellir in Hvammshreppur; Vellir in Svarfað ardalshreppur; Stað ur in Reynistað arhreppur; Þ ingeyrar in Neð riVatnsdalshreppur; Breið ab ó lsta ð ur in Vesturhó psh reppur 26 Íslendingab ó k 22–23: “allir menn tǫ l ð u ok virð u allt fé sitt ok s óru, at ré tt virt væ ri, hvá rt sem vas í lǫ ndum eð a í lausaaurum, ok gø r ð u tí und af sí ð an. […] lé t ok lǫ g leggja á þ at, at stó ll byskups þ ess, es á Í slandi væ ri, skyldi í Ská laholti vesa, en á ð r vas hvergi, ok lagð i hann þ ar til stó lsins Ská laholtsland ok margra kynja auð œ i ǫ nnur bæ ð i í lǫ ndum ok í lausum aurum. […] gaf hann meir en jó r ð ung byskupsdó ms sí ns.” Cf. Kristni saga, 41; Jó ns saga ins helga, 193–94. 27 Sveinn Ví kingur, Getið í eyð ur sö gunnar , 134–36; Orri Vé steinsson, “Í slenska só knaskipulagi ð og samband heimila á mið ö ldum,” 147–66; Orri Vé steinss on, The Christianization of Iceland, 58, 288; Orri Vé steinsson, “The Formative Phase of the Icelandic Church ca. 990–1240 ,” 71–81; Sigrí ð ur Sigurð ard ó ttir, Kirkjur og bæ nh ú s í Skagairð i ; Sigrí ð ur Sigurð ard ó ttir, Mið aldakirkjur 1000–1318: Skagirska kirkjurannsó knin . 28 Orri Vé steinsson, The Christianization of Iceland, 60. 6

6 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

only half of the normal number of masses was sung, while in quarter-churches only every fourth mass was sung, and in a chapel ( bæ nh ú s ) mass was sung only once every month. 29 In Iceland there were two types of parish churches, bæ ndakirkjur and stað ir . If a church owned the entire farm it was established on it was stað r , and if it owned less it was called a farmer’s church or bæ ndakirkja . The stað ir parish churches were therefore usually wealthier than the bæ ndakirkjur. Those who founded churches dedicated them to a saint (or several), and God, on the condition that they and their heirs should con- trol the gift for all eternity. The gift was divided into four parts and given to the bishop, the priests at the parish churches, the maintenance of the parish church, and the poor. Those who owned or governed the churches, before the bishops gained control over the parish churches in 1297, had a great deal of freedom with controlling their incomes and fortunes. They received half of the tithes, the share belonging to the priest and the church, and could also control the funeral fees. In addition to this the administrators for example also kept the proits from the land tax of church-owne d farms. 30 For the goð ar and the social elite it was important to gain control over the new reli- gion, and one way to do this was to build churches that were larger than those affordable to common householders. The thirty-three wealthiest churches in Iceland, which I have labelled as major churches, have, beside their wealth, two other important aspects in common: they employed three or more clerics, among the best educated in the country, 31 and many of them, like Haukadalur and Oddi, became centres of learning. It is dificult to determine exactly when these major churches were founded. There are no sources that bear evidence to it, but there is reason to assume that most of them were established in the irst half of the eleventh century, after the introduction of the tithe. 32 Out of the thirty-three major churches, over two-thirds can be associated with goð ar families, which tells us that almost all goð ar families built such churches. In the power game it became important for the goð ar to show their status through their churches, as well as their education. Two of the major churches, Kirkjubæ r and Oddi, are described as h ǫfu ð sta ð r , and in the case of Oddi, even as the hæsti hǫfuðstaðr. 33 This terminology may indicate a supe- rior status in the Church hierarchy. However, it is dificult to prove that these churches, or indeed other major churches, has had any special tasks which other churches has not. On the other hand Kirkjubæ r and Oddi both had backgrounds which possibly make them

29 Þ ormó ð ur Sveinsson, “Bæ jatali ð í Auð unarm á ld ö gum ,” 26; Magnú s Stefá nsson, “Islandsk egenkirkevesen,” 236; Gunnar F. Guð mundsson, Íslenskt samfé lag og Ró makirkja , 185–86. 30 Magn ú s Stefá nsson, “Kirkjuvald elist,” 72–81; Magnú s Stefá nsson, “Frá goð akirkju til biskupskirkju,” 210–26; Magnú s Stefá nsson, “Islandsk egenkirkevesen,” 234–54; Magnú s Stefá nsson, Stað ir og stað am á l , 191–216. 31 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, “ H ø vdingene, storkirkene og den litteræ re aktiviteten på Island fram til ca. 1300,” 190– 94. 32 Magn ú s Stefá nsson, “Kirkjuvald elist,” 87; Hjalti Hugason, Frumkristni og upphaf kirkju, 199– 201; Benedikt Eyþ ó rsson, “Í þ j ó nustu Snorra,” 21. 33 Kirkjub æ r ( Þó rlaks saga byskups yngri, 149), Oddi ( Þó rlaks saga byskups in elzta, 49; Þó rlaks saga byskups yngri, 145). 7

INTRODUCTION 7

S – Skalhólt H – Hólar Major churches

Map 1. Bishop seats and major churches in medieval Iceland (copyright Jón Viðar Sigurðsson).

deserving of the title h ǫfu ð sta ð r . Oddi was without a doubt the country’s richest church in the second half of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it was, as has been discussed above, one of the most important schools in the country. Kirkjubæ r was, if we are to believe Landná mab ó k , an important Christian religious centre from the time of the settlement. It is dificult to look to Europe for models of the major churches. The most obvious parallels can be drawn to the so-called “minster churches” in England and the main churches ( hovedkirker) in Norway. Minsters were founded by kings and served by sev- eral priests who were in charge of pastoral care in a large geographical area. They were also important as literary–administrative centres. 34 However, it is dificult to argue in favour of these churches being used as models for the major churches in Iceland, since their heyday was over by the time the goð ar started to build their churches. In Norway the main churches were erected by the kings, and as they held a supreme position in the church hierarchy, we can rule out the possibility of the main churches there being an inspiration for the goð ar .

34 For an overview of the discussion about minster churches, see: Blair, “Secular Minster Churches in Domesday Book,” 104–42; Blair, Minsters and Parish Churches; Blair and Sharpe, Pastoral Care before the Parish; Blair and Pyrah, Church Archaeology. 8

8 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

Where do we draw a line between Haukadalur and Oddi, and the other major churches, after the introduction of the tithe? It is problematic to distinguish one from the other. The main difference between them was probably that the “schools” in Haukadalur and Oddi received more “students” from other goð ar families than the other major churches, whose students were recruited more locally. Because the goð ar and the social elite in general got involved with the new religion as heavily as they did, and so many of them received clerical learning in addition to being trained as lawyers and , the educational level in Iceland was high. A signiicant feature in Icelandic medieval society was that only a select few went abroad in order to receive an education. Sons, and daughters, of the social elite were usually educated at the major churches, and at the bishoprics.

The Lawspeakers So far the focus has been on goð ar and bishops, but another group of men also played an important role in this process: the lawspeakers. The lawspeakers belonged to the social elite, with both strong family and friendship ties to the goð ar , and in some cases (although not in the period we are focusing on) the goð ar were also lawspeakers. In the period ca. 1050–1150 there were eleven lawspeakers, 35 and in these years three impor- tant legal steps were taken: in 1096/97 the law of the tithe was accepted; in the winter of 1117/18 a part of the secular law was written down at Breið a bó lsta ð ur; and in the years 1122–1132 church laws were introduced. Probably all of these law codes were written in the vernacular, and the two latest ones most deinitely. In the following paragraphs we will have a look at the lawspeakers in ofice when these three laws were made. As mentioned above, the law of the tithe was introduced when Gizurr Í sleifsson was bishop, in cooperation with the goð i Sæ mundr Sigfú sson and the lawspeaker Markú s Skeggjason. 36 We know that both Gizurr and Sæ mundr were well educated, and it is probable that Markú s, in addition to his in-depth knowledge of Icelandic law, was edu- cated as a cleric, though he was not ordained to be a priest. Little is known about the lawspeakers’ education. They, obviously, must have been thoroughly learned in the laws, and is likely that most of them also received a clerical education. 37 In Kristni saga it is stated that Markú s had been “the wisest of Iceland’s lawspeakers apart from Skapti [Þ ó roddsson]”. 38 Markú s is the only lawspeaker listed in Ská ldatal , 39 and in Hungrvaka

35 Gellir Bǫ lverksson (1054–1062); Gunnar hinnspaki Þ orgr í msson (1063–1065); Kolbeinn Flosason (1066–1071); Gellir Bö lverksson (1072–1074); Gunnar hinnspaki Þ orgr í msson (1075); Sighvatr Surtsson (1076–1083); Markú s Skeggjason (1084–1107 ); Ú lh é ð inn Gunnarsson (1108–1116); Bergþ ó rr Hrafnsson (1117–1122); Guð mundr Þorgeirsson (1123–1134); Hrafn Ú lh é ð insson (1135–1138); Finnr Hallsson (1139–1145); Gunnar Ú lh é ð insson (1146–1155). 36 Íslendingab ó k , 22. 37 Cfr. Burrows, Literary–legal Relations in Commonwealth-period Iceland, 42. 38 Kristni saga, 40, “vitrastr verit lǫgmanna á Íslandi annarr en Skapti [Þóroddsson]” Cfr. Í slendingab ó k , 22. 39 Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. 9

INTRODUCTION 9

he is described as “a very wise man and .” 40 That Hungrvaka characterizes him as ská ld underlines that his social position was associated not only with his role as a lawspeaker. Fyrsta má lfr æ ð iritger ð in ( The First Grammatical Treatise) claims that: “The skalds are the authorities in all [matters touching the art of] writing or the distinctions [made in] discourse, just as craftsmen [are in their craft] or lawmen [ lǫ gmenn ] in the laws.” 41 The distinctions often made between “saga authors,” skalds, legal specialists (either lö gmenn and lawspeakers), clerics, and goð i are misleading since most of skalds and “saga authors” we know of from this period belonged to many of these categories, Sæ mundr fró ð i being an example of this. This can also clearly been seen in the term guð spjallask á ld , 42 a word used to describe the four evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Being a skald meant that one had to travel abroad to meet kings, and in Markú s’s case Ingi Steinkelsson of Sweden (d. 1105), the Danish kings Knú tr helgi (d. 1086), and Eirí kr Sveinsson (d. 1103). 43 It is likely that it was on his journeys abroad that Markú s learned about the tithe system. When brought back home it was, as previously stated, probable that the laws were written in the vernacular, since they would probably not have been accepted at the Althing otherwise. For the Icelandic Church it was important to create a secure economic foundation, and the introduction of the tithe was a precon- dition for that. It was therefore vital that these laws were made in the vernacular, in close cooperation with the lawspeaker, and the goð ar . In 1117 it was decided at the Althing that the laws should be written down, and Ari fró ð i narrates in Íslendingab ó k that this was done

in a book at the home of Halið i Má sson [Breið ab ó lsta ð ur, a major church] the following winter, at the dictation and with the guidance of Halið i and Bergþ ó rr, as well as of other wise men appointed for this task. They were to make new provisions in the law in all cases where these seemed to them better than the old laws. These were to be proclaimed the next summer in the Law Council, and all those were to be kept which a majority of people did not oppose. And it happened as a result that the Treatment of Homicide Law and many other things in the laws were then written down and proclaimed in the Law Council by clerics the next summer. And everyone was very pleased with this, and no one opposed it. 44

Hali ð i Má sson was one of the most powerful goð i in the country. Lawspeaker Bergþ ó rr Hrafnsson was the grandson of the lawspeaker Gunnar Þ orgr í m sson spaki, and nephew to

40 Hungrvaka, 17: “inn mesti spekingr ok ská ld.” 41 The First Grammatical Treatise, 224–27: “Skalld erv hofvndar allrar rynní ę ð a má á lʃ greinar ʃ em smið ir [ʃ m í ð ar] ę ð a lǫ gmenn laga.” 42 Íslensk hó mil í ub ó k , 81, 231, 258, 262, 266. 43 Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. 44 Íslendingab ó k , 23–24: “Et fyrsta sumar, es Bergþ ó rr sagð i lǫ g upp, vas ný m æ li þ at gǫ rt, at lǫ g ó r skyldi skrifa á bó k at Halið a Má ssonar of vetrinn eptir at sǫ gu ok umbrá ð i þ eira Bergþ ó rs ok annarra spakra manna, þ eira es til þ ess vá ru teknir. Skyldu þ eir gø rva ný m æ li þ au ǫ ll í lǫ gum, es þ eim litisk þau betri en hin fornu lǫ g. Skyldi þ au segja upp et næ sta sumar eptir í lǫ gr é ttu ok þ au ǫ ll halda, es enn meiri hlutr manna mæ lti þ á eigi gegn. En þ at varð at framfara, at þ á vas skrifað r 10

10 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

the lawspeaker Ú lh é ð inn Gunnarsson. We know nothing about Bergþ ó rr’s education, but to be able to take on this task he had to be able to read and probably also write. Kristinnalaga þ á ttr (Christian Law Section) was made in the period 1122–1123, 45 a t which time Guð mundr Þ orgeirsson was lawspeaker. Nothing is known about him, and even though the country’s two bishops, with the aid of an archbishop, made the laws, 46 it is unlikely that Guð mundr and the goð ar had not been involved in the process. The assembly men at the Althing had to accept the laws in the end, and for this reason it is unthinkable that Guð mundr Þ orgeirsson was not able to read. This would also have been the case with all of the lawspeakers in the period ca. 1060–1150. The situation regarding literary activity in Iceland around 1150 is well known. This is because of a statement in Fyrsta má lfr æ ð iritger ð in that lists up, at the time it was made, “laws and genealogies, or interpretations of sacred writings, or also that sagacious (histor- ical) lore that Ari Þ orgilsson has recorded in books with such reasonable understanding.” 47 This proves that around 1150 Icelanders were writing extensively in the vernacular, and it was the goð ar , under the initative of the Haukdæ lir and the Oddaverjar, who, together with the bishops, were the driving forces behind this process. In his prologue to Heimskringla Snorri Sturluson claims that Ari was the irst Icelander to write in the vernacular (“at norrœ nu má li”). 48 This statement and the prologue have been debated extensively, and we will not be engaged in that discussion at this time, and can only conclude that Snorri is not referring to the laws. 49

Vernacular One central feature of social development in the Middle Ages is the transition from oral to written communication. It was the Church which provided contact between Iceland and the literary communities in Western Europe. Writing in the vernacular started around 1100 in Iceland, and it soon became the dominant writing form, superseding Latin. It is complicated to explain why the vernacular became so important in Iceland. It has been argued that this may have been due to Benedictine inluence. 50 However, as we have seen, the irst and only monastic house was established ca. 1130 at Þ ingeyrar, years after Icelanders started to write in the vernacular. As mentioned above, the focus was strongly on writing down the laws, in the vernacular, and when the problem of adapting

Ví gsl ó ð i ok margt annat í lǫ gum ok sagt upp í lǫ g ré ttu af kennimǫnnum of sumarit eptir. En þ at lí ka ð i ǫ llum vel, ok mæ lti þ v í manngi í gegn.” 45 Hungrvaka, 23– 24. 46 Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, 9.304–6. 47 The First Grammatical Treatise, 209: “bæ ð i lö g ok á á ttv í si eð a þ y ð ingar helgar eð a sva þ av hí n spaklegv fræ ð í er ari þ orgilsson heir a bø kr sett af skynsamlgv viti.” 48 Heimskringla, 5. 49 Turville- Petre, “Notes on the intellectual history of Icelanders,” 113. 50 Borgehammer, “Sunnivalegenden och den benediktinska reformen i England,” 129–35; Johansson, “Philology and Interdisciplinary Research,” 35–37. 11

INTRODUCTION 11

the Latin alphabet to it dǫ nsk tunga had been solved, the next steps were easy. It is likely that these steps were taken among the learned Icelandic social elite, bishops, goð ar , lawspeakers, lawmen, and the most educated priests. What is also signiicant is the Icelandic dominance regarding leading positions in the church: until 1238 all bishops in Iceland were Icelanders, whereas in Norway, Sweden, and most of the bishops were foreigners up to the middle of the twelfth century. 51 The cult of saints was an important aspect of the new religion, and there can be little doubt that this had a signiicant impact on society. 52 A clear testimony to this is found in Í slendingab ó k . Here Ari froð i claims that Iceland was settled in the year Edmund the Holy was killed, as is written in the “saga” dedicated to him. It is uncertain whether this saga was Passio Sancti Eadmundi from around 1000 or De miraculis Sancti Eadmundi from approximately 1100. 53 Either way, the legend about the Holy Edmund was known in Iceland at the beginning of the twelfth century. Other evidence is clearly found in Fyrsta má lfr æ ð iritger ð in , which lists “þ ý ð ingar helgar” (sacred writings) as one of the genres which existed in Iceland around 1250. 54 “Þ ý ð ingar helgar” could be used about vitas, sagas about holy men and women. In the survey The Saints in Iceland. Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400 Margaret Cormack mentions approximately seventy-ive saints used as patron saints of churches in Iceland. 55 Of these, only seven do not have a saga in Old Norse. A number of Icelandic medieval manuscripts have been lost, and it is therefore not unlikely that all the patron saints had their legends translated. Every single parish church probably owned a saga about its patron saint, 56 maybe in the vernacular. It is hard to explain why the goð ar , in contrast to lords abroad, were so keen on the new Christian book culture. It could probably be associated with the possibility of learning, books etc. being used as a means of creating social differences. In other words, there was a political motif behind the interest. An important difference between the political game in Iceland and in Europe was that the society in Iceland was more peaceful. This can easily be seen in the adjectives the sagas use in their descriptions of the goð ar : skills regarding weaponry were only used regarding one or two of them, and instead their most important personal abilities were generosity and wisdom. 57 The peace in Iceland is clearly demonstrated through the period between ca. 1030 and 1118 has been called frið ar ö ld (the age of peace) by scholars. 58 This view stems from the scar- city of sources from the period and from an account in Kristni saga which states that when Gizurr Í sleifsson was bishop (1082–1118), he looked after the country so well that

51 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, Kristninga i Norden 750–1200 , 67– 68. 52 Gr ø nlie, The Saint and the Saga Hero. 53 Íslendingab ó k , xxii–xxiii. 54 The First Grammatical Treatise, 209. 55 Cormack, The Saints in Iceland. 56 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, “Legender om hellige kvinner på Island i hø ymiddelalderen,” 116. 57 J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson, Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth, 85– 95. 58 Maurer, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaats, 98; Jó n Jó hannesson, Íslendinga saga I. Þ j ó ð veldis ö ld , 177, 269–73; Bjö rn Þ orsteinsson, Ný Í slandssaga , 207. 12

12 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

“no major disputes arose among the goð ar, and the practice of carrying arms was to a large degree abandoned.” 59 Even though this is an exaggeration, 60 no major disputes are known from this period. It was the goð ar who made the irst steps into the new Christian world, a world they could use in order to advance their own social superiority. The schools at Ská lholt, Haukadalur and Oddi played a signiicant role in the second half of the eleventh century, and after the introduction of the tithe other chieftains followed suit. Another crucial driving force in the literary process was the major churches, which became centres of learning under the control of the goð ar . Learning and “saga writing” became important aspects of the culture of the social elite, and also gradually developed into a national popular culture. There is a strong continuity of this culture through to the present time, the main reason for this being that the literary works were written in the vernacular language, which hardly changed since the irst settlers came to Iceland around 870.

References Primary Sources Diplomatarium Islandicum. Í slenzkt fornbré fasafn I–XVI . Edited by Jó n Sigurð sson, Jón Þorkelsson, Páll Eggert Ólason, and Björn Þorsteinsson Copenhagen: Hið í slenzka bó kmenntajelag, 1857–1972. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Nafnaþ ulur og Ská ldatal . Edited by Guð ni Jó nsson. Reykjaví k: I slendingasagnaú tg á fan, 1954. Heimskringla I. Edited by Bjarni Að albjarnarson. Í slenzk fornrit 26. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 1941. Hungrvaka. In Biskupa sö gur II. Edited by Á sd í s Egilsdó ttir. Í slenzk fornrit 16. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2002. Ísleifs þ á ttr byskups. In Biskupa sö gur II. Edited by Á sd í s Egilsdó ttir. Í slenzk fornrit 16. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2002. Íslendingab ó k. Kristni saga. The Book of the Icelanders. The Story of the Conversion. Edited by Siâ n Grø nlie. London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London, 2006. Íslendingab ó k . Edited by Jakob Benediktsson. Í slenzk fornrit 1. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 1968. Íslensk hó mil í ub ó k fornar stó lr æ ð ur . Edited by Guð r ú n Kvaran, Sigurbjörn Einarsson, and Gunnlaugur Ingólfsson. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmennt afé lag, 1993. Jó ns saga ins helga. In Biskupa sö gur I. Í slenzk fornrit 15. Edited by Sigurgeir Steingrí msson and Ólafur Halldórsson. Reykjaví k: Hið í s lenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2003. Kristniboð Þ angbrands . In Biskupa sö gur I. Í slenzk fornrit 15. Edited by Sigurgeir Steingrí msson and Ólafur Halldórsson. Reykjaví k: Hið í s lenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2003.

59 Kristni saga, 42: “at þ á urð u engars með hǫ f ð ingjum, en vápnaburðr lagð isk mjǫ k ni ð r.” 60 Gunnar Karlsson, “Goð ar og bæ ndur,” 34–35; Gunnar Karlsson, “Frá þj ó ð veldi til konungsrí kis,” 38. 13

INTRODUCTION 13

Kristni saga. In Biskupa sö gur I. Í slenzk fornrit 15. Edited by Sigurgeir Steingrí msson and Ólafur Halldórsson. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf élag, 2003. Landná mab ó k . Edited by Jakob Benediktsson. Í slenzk fornrit 1. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 1968. Sturlunga saga I–II . Edited by Jó n Jó hannesson, Magnús Finnbogason, and Kristján Eldjárn. Reykjaví k: Sturlunguutgafan, 1946. The First Grammatical Treatise. Introduction, Text, Notes, Translation, Vocabulary, Facsimiles. Edited by Hreinn Benediktsson. Reykjavik: Institute of Nordic Linguistics, 1972. Þó rlaks saga byskups in elzta. In Biskupa sö gur II. Edited by Á sd í s Egilsdó ttir. Í slenzk fornrit 16. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2 002. Þó rlaks saga byskups yngri. In Biskupa sö gur II. Edited by Á sd í s Egilsdó ttir. Í slenzk fornrit 16. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenska bó kmenntaf é lag, 2002.

Secondary Literature Anderson, Theodore M. “Kings’ Sagas (Konungasö gur).” In Old Norse–Icelandic Literature: A Critical Guide, edited by Carol J. Clover and John Lindow, 197–238. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985. Bekker- Nielsen, Hans. “Den æ ldste tid.” In Norrø n fortæ llekunst: kapitler af den norsk- islandske middelalderlitteraturs historie, edited by Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al., 9–26. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1965. — — . “Frode mæ nd og tradition.” In Norrø n fortæ llekunst: kapitler af den norsk-islandske middelalderlitteraturs historie, edited by Hans Bekker-Nielsen et al., 35–41. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, 1965. Benedikt Eyþ ó rsson. “Í þ j ó nustu Snorra. Stað urinn í Reykholti og klerkar þ ar í tí ð Snorra Sturlusonar.” Sagnir. Tí marit um sö guleg efni 23 (2003): 20–26. Bj ö rn Þ orsteinsson. Ný Í slandssaga . Reykjaví k: Heimskringla, 1966. Blair, John. “Secular Minster Churches in Domesday Book.” In Domesday Book. A Reassessment, edited by Peter Sawyer, 104–42. London: Edward Arnold, 1985. Blair, John, ed. Minsters and Parish Churches. The Local Church in Transition 950–1200 . Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988. Blair, John, and Carol Pyrah, eds. Church Archaeology. Research Directions for the Future. CBA research report 104. York: Council for British Archaeology, 1996. Blair, John, and Richard Sharpe, eds. Pastoral Care Before the Parish. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1992. Borgehammer, Stephan. “Sunnivalegenden och den benediktinska reformen i England.” In Selja—heilag stad i 1000 å r , edited by Magnus Rindal, 123–59. Oslo: Universitets forlaget, 1997. Burrows, Hannah. Literary–legal Relations in Commonwealth-period Iceland. York: University of York, 2007. Cormack, Margaret. The Saints in Iceland. Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400. Brussels: Socié t é des Bollandistes, 1994. Elleh ø j, Svend. Studier over den æ ldste norrø ne historieskrivning. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1965. 14

14 JÓN VIÐAR SIGURÐSSON

Foote, Peter Godfrey. Aurvandilstá : Norse Studies. Odense: Odense University Press, 1984. Gr ø nlie, Siâ n E. The Saint and the Saga Hero: Hagiography and Early Icelandic Literature. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2017. Íslensk bó kmenntasaga I. Edited by Guð r ú n Nordal et al. Reykjaví k: Má l og menning, 1992. Gunnar F. Guð mundsson. Íslenskt samfé lag og Ró makirkja . Kristni á Í slandi II. Reykjaví k: Alþ ingi, 2000. Gunnar Harð arson. “Old Norse Intellectual Culture: Appropriation and Innovation.” In Intellectual Culture in Medieval Scandinavia, c. 1100–1350 , edited by Steka Georgieva Eriksen, 35–73. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016. Gunnar Karlsson. “Frá þ j ó ð veldi til konungsrí kis.” In Saga Í slands II. Edited by Sigurð ur Lí ndal,1– 54. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenzka bó kmenntaf é la g, 1975. — — . “Goð ar og bæ ndur.” Saga 10 (1972): 5–57. Hjalti Hugason. Frumkristni og upphaf kirkju. Kristni á Í slandi I. Reykjaví k: Alþ ingi, 2000. H ø dneb ø , Finn et al, eds. Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder I–XXII . Oslo, 1956–1978 (2. oppl. 1980–1982). Johansson, Karl Gunnar. “Philology and Interdisciplinary Research—the Sturlungs, Benedictine Monasteries and Manuscript Tradition.” In Reykholt in Borgarjö r ð ur. An Interdisciplinary Research Project. Workshop held 20–21 August 1999, edited by Guð r ú n Sveinbjarnardó ttir, 35–41. Reykjaví k: Þ j ó ð minjasafn Í slands, 2000. J ó n Jó hannesson. Íslendinga saga I. Þ j ó ð veldis ö ld . Reykjaví k: Almenna bó kaf é lagi ð , 1956. J ó n Við ar Sigurð sson. Chieftains and Power in the Icelandic Commonwealth. Translated by Jean Lundskæ r- Nielsen. Odense: Odense University Press, 1999. — — . Frá goð or ð um til rí kja: Þ r ó un goð avalds á 12. og 13. ö ld. Reykjaví k: Bó ka ú tg á fa Menningarsjó ð s, 1989. — — . “Hø vdingene, storkirkene og den litteræ re aktiviteten på Island fram til ca. 1300.” In Den kirkehistoriske utfordring, edited by Steinar Imsen, 181–96. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag, 2005. — — . Kristninga i Norden 750–1200 . Oslo: Samlaget, 2003. — — . “Legender om hellige kvinner på Island i hø ymiddela lderen.” In Kirkehistorier. Rapport fra et middelaldersymposium, edited by Nanna Damsholt et al., 115–33. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Forlag, 1996. J ó nas Kristjá nsson. Eddas and Sagas. Iceland’s Medieval Literature. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenzka bó kmenntaf é lag, 1992. Magn ú s Stefá nsson. “Frá goð akirkju til biskupskirkju.” In Saga Í slands III, edited by Sigurð ur Lí ndal, 109–257. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenzka b ókmenntaf é lag, 1978. — — . “Islandsk egenkirkevesen.” In Mø tet mellom hedendom og kristendom i Norge, edited by Hans-Emil Lidé n, 234–54. Oslo: Universitets forlag, 1995. — — . “Kirkjuvald elist.” In Saga Í slands II, edited by Sigurð ur Lí ndal, 55–144. Reykjaví k: Hið í slenzka bó kmenntaf é lag, 1975. —— . Stað ir og stað am á l: studier i islandske egenkirkelige og beneicialrettslige forhold i middelalderen. Bergen: Historisk institutt, Universitetet i Bergen, 2000. Maurer, Konrad. Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum Untergange des Freistaats. Munich: Christian Kaiser, 1874. 15

INTRODUCTION 15

Orri Vé steinsson. The Christianization of Iceland: Priests, Power, and Social Change, 1000–1300 . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. — — . “The Formative Phase of the Icelandic Church ca. 990–1 240 .” In Church Centres: Church Centres in Iceland from the 11th to the 13th Century and their Parallels in Other Countries, edited by Helgi Þ orl á ksson, 71–81. Reykholt: Snorrastofa, 2005. — — . “Í slenska s óknaskipulagi ð og samband heimila á mið ö ldum.” In Íslenska sö gu þ ingi ð I, edited by Guð mundur J. Guð mundsson and Eirí kur K. Bjö rnsson, 147–66. Reykjaví k: Sagnfræ ð istofnun Há skola Í slands, 1998. Sigr í ð ur Sigurð ard ó ttir. Kirkjur og bæ nh ú s í Skagairð i . Sauð á rkr ó kur: Byggð asafn Skagirð inga, 2008. — — . Mið aldakirkjur 1000–1318: Skagirska kirkjurannsó knin . Glaumbæ r: Byggð asafn Skagirð inga 2012. Sveinn Ví kingur. Getið í eyð ur sö gunnar . Reykjaví k: Kvö ldv ö ku ú tg á fan, 1970. Turville- Petre, Gabriel. “Notes on the Intellectual History of Icelanders.” History 28 (1942): 111–23. Þ ormó ð ur Sveinsson. “Bæ jatali ð í Auð unarm á ld ö gum .” Árb ó k hins í slenzka fornleifafé lags 53 (1954): 23–47. 16