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18 - Biskupa sögur
- from Part IV - The New Christian World
- Edited by Heather O'Donoghue, University of Oxford, Eleanor Parker, University of Oxford
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- Book:
- The Cambridge History of Old Norse-Icelandic Literature
- Published online:
- 08 February 2024
- Print publication:
- 29 February 2024, pp 372-390
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Summary
The Biskupa sögur (sagas of bishops) deal with the lives of six medieval Icelandic bishops, covering the history of Iceland’s two bishoprics, Skálholt and Hólar, from the mid eleventh century to the fourteenth century. They are important sources for Icelandic church history and the lives of individual bishops, three of whom were venerated as saints. This chapter provides a history of the genre, surveying texts about the saints Þorlákr Þórhallsson, Jón Ögmundsson and Guðmundr Arason, the chronicle Hungrvaka, which records the lives of the five bishops who preceded St Þorlákr, the sagas of three other bishops, Páls saga, Árna saga Þorlákssonar and Lárentíus saga Kálfssonar, and two þættir, Ísleifs þáttr and Jóns þáttr Halldórssonar. This genre has received less scholarly attention than some other genres of Icelandic literature, but this chapter argues that the sagas have much to offer historians and literary scholars. It examines the role of miracle-stories within the sagas and considers what these texts can tell us about such questions as the relationship between memory and literacy in medieval Iceland, the expression of emotion, masculinity, sexuality and celibacy.
7 - Remembering Saints and Bishops in Medieval Iceland
- Edited by Kirsten Wolf, Dario Bullitta
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- Book:
- Saints and their Legacies in Medieval Iceland
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 14 January 2023
- Print publication:
- 16 July 2021, pp 175-194
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There was probably no fear that saints would be forgotten in the Middle Ages. Saints were assigned specific feast-days and liturgical calendars served as an aid to commemorate them. Various forms of commemoration in creating and transforming cultural memory, such as devotional and liturgical practices, and material aspects in the form of relics, devotional objects and manuscripts. People who attended masses and divine offices would have known about the saints and could therefore have retold stories of their lives and passions from memory. It is also likely that stories of the national Icelandic saints were kept in people’s memory, associated with the places where they had dwelled and visited. Medievalists have studied memory in association with orality for a long time. In this chapter, I focus mainly, but not exclusively, on ‘learned memory’ (memoria artificialis) as opposed to ‘natural memory’ (memoria naturalis). Natural memory is the natural ability to remember, yet memory that could be trained and improved with special methods is understood as learned memory. Scholars such as Mary Carruthers and Brian Stock have drawn attention to the interplay between the written and the spoken, between the book and memory, rather than seeing the written and oral as two separate cultures.
Christianity brought to Iceland books and the art of reading and writing in the Roman alphabet, while the new faith introduced and fostered an imported textual culture, which often relied on the oral transmission of illiterate informants, who constantly memorized, kept, and recalled highly valuable knowledge. In his Íslendingabók, composed in the years 1122–1133, Ari Þorgilsson mentions several informants, the oldest being Hallr Þórarinsson (995–1089). Besides, he refers to wise people and general knowledge and remarks that his informants are endowed with good memory. About his paternal uncle Þorkell Gellisson (c. 1030–1074) he writes that he ‘es langt munði fram’ (‘rememberd a long way back.’) Hallr Þórarinsson, an important informant about the Conversion, is said to have had ‘minnigr ok ólyginn ok munði sjalfr þat es hann vas skírðr, at Þangbrandr skírði hann þrevetran, en þat vas vetri fyrr en kristni væri hér í lǫg tekin’ (‘a reliable memory and was truthful, and remembered himself when he was being baptized, [and] told us that Þangbrandr had baptized him when he was three years old, and that was one year before Christianity was made law here’).
Masculinity, Christianity, and (Non)Violence
- Edited by Gareth Lloyd Evans, Jessica Clare Hancock
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- Book:
- Masculinities in Old Norse Literature
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 06 October 2020
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- 17 July 2020, pp 113-126
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Most scholars agree that masculinity is a complex social construct that varies between cultures and changes over centuries. Despite this variability, masculinity is usually linked with strength and power. According to the Australian sociologist Raewyn Connell, multiple types of masculinity coexist in every society. Linking masculinity with power produces a dominant, culturallyendorsed form of masculinity – a ‘hegemonic masculinity’ – through the marginalisation or subordination of other forms of masculinities as well as femininities. The conversion to Christianity in 999/1000 introduced a new type of masculinity to Iceland. Unlike their secular counterparts, men of the Church had to establish their authority without being able to adhere to many of the outward signs of a hegemonic masculinity such as carrying weapons or being sexually active. Nevertheless, control over women and their household was still a possible facet of clerical identities. In Iceland, clerical marriage and concubinage continued well into the thirteenth century. A formal ban against clerical marriage was included in the Christian law of Bishop Árni Þorláksson in 1275 but many clerics nevertheless continued to keep concubines.
It was not just the conversion which affected masculinities in Iceland during this period. Imported, translated literature also brought new ideas about masculinity to Iceland and influenced the representation of masculinity in vernacular literature. In chivalric-inspired romances, knights were portrayed as brave, elegant and also able to control their sexual desires, whereas the urges of heathen characters could not be subdued. In translated hagiographic literature, male martyrs show physical strength and endurance similar to these chivalric heroes, and their female counterparts are admired for acting in a manly way: for example, in Margrétar saga, St Margrét conquers a demon by pulling him by the hair and stepping on him. The demon expresses his surprise that a young virgin has overpowered him and says: ‘Mér þætti ekki til koma ef karlmaðr hefði þetta gert’ (I would not have been surprised if a man had done this). Strength is not just related to physical ability in hagiography, as overcoming sexual desire and lust was also seen as a sign of strength. Since the masculinity of the clergy could not be defined by their bravery in battle or their sexual virility, religious literature emphasized that their staying chaste also required strength.
7 - St þorlákr of Iceland: The Emergence of a Cult
- Edited by Stephen Morillo
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- Book:
- The Haskins Society Journal 12
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 12 September 2012
- Print publication:
- 21 August 2003, pp 121-132
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The year 2000 was a year of celebrations in Iceland marking the 1000th anniversary of the adoption of Christianity. The conversion in Iceland is believed to have taken place in 999 or 1000 in the reign of King Ólafr Tryggvason of Norway and fully confirmed in the reign of his successor Ólafr Haraldsson, whose sainthood was acknowledged soon after his death in 1030. Several sources contain information about the process of Christianisation in Iceland, the oldest being the Book of the Icelanders (Íslendingabók) by Ari þorgilsson from 1125–30. The book is a concise history of Iceland from the beginning of the settlement until c. 1120. The sources and transmission of Ari's account can be traced to the time of the conversion. Ari says in his book that his account of the acceptance of Christianity was how his informant and teacher, Teitr Ísleifsson, had told it. Teitr was the son of Ísleifr, the first bishop of Iceland. Ísleifr was the son of Gizurr Ísleifsson, a Christian chieftain who was present at that dramatic Althing meeting when the new religion was accepted. The accounts of the adoption of Christianity are extensive and lively compared to other chapters of the Book of the Icelanders. It describes how the heathens and the followers of the missionaries almost went to war with each other. Due to a clever speech by the heathen lawspeaker, peace was restored and a law passed saying that the populace should be Christian.