The Church in Fourteenth-Century Iceland

This is an edited version of Erika Sigurdson’s doctoral thesis, which she defended at the University of Leeds. The book deals with an interesting—and little studied—topic and period, namely the identity of the Icelandic upper clergy in the fourteenth century. Sigurdson’s approach and use of the Icelandic narrative sources are novel and innovative. Until now, scholarship has mainly concentrated on the earlier history of the Icelandic church, from the Christianisation of the island until the 1260s, when the island did not yet belong to the Norwegian realm. Sigurdson, instead, examines the period after the inclusion of the two Icelandic dioceses, Skálholt and Hólar, into the Norwegian church province of Nidaros, which considerably altered the ecclesiastical system in the island. The aim of the book is to investigate the identity of elite clergy in Iceland, their connections, networks and relationships both within Iceland and on the Norwegian mainland. The project is an extremely interesting one, but the book does not completely fulfil its goals because the main primary sources used in the study, the narrative bishops’ sagas, cannot provide answers to the questions posed. The saga texts give interesting glimpses into the lives and deeds of some central Icelandic clerics—such as Árni Ϸorláksson, bishop of Skálholt, to whom the Árna saga is dedicated, or Jón Halldórsson, bishop of Skálholt, of whom the Jóns Ϸáttr Halldórssonar tells—but they cannot offer the more comprehensive picture of the Icelandic clergy that the study needs. The author tries to cover the holes in the saga literature by using documentary sources and Icelandic annals but the paucity of this other material is very limiting

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