Ný saga - 01.01.1999, Page 103

Summaries
Helga Kress
ConfcsNÍo turpissima
The Confession of the Rich Ólöf Loftsdóttir
(Confessio turpissima. Um skriftamál Ólafar ríku)
‘Confessio Turpissima’ (The Most Obscene Con-
fession) is the name given to a medieval Icelandic
text that takes the form of a Catholic confession
in which an anonymous woman confesses her sex-
ual transgressions to her priest. Dated to the fif-
teenth century and preserved in a manuscript
from 1773, the text was published, although in a
censored form, in 1900 in Diplomatarium
Islandicum as ‘The Confession of the Rich Ólöf
Loftsdóttir.’ Ólöf Loftsdóttir (1410-79) was one
of the most renowned and powerful women in
Icelandic history, and this unique document has
traditionally been viewed as her genuine confes-
sion.
Private confessions, however, were never
recorded, for the church had strict rules to ensure
secrecy in confessing one’s sins. On the other
hand, handbooks with directives for penance and
formulas for confessions were widespread during
the Middle Ages. At the same time, parodies of
sacred texts were a popular literary genre, among
them parodies of confessions. The article argues
that ‘The Confession of the Rich Ólöf ’ is a porno-
graphic parody with various intertextual relation-
ships with these handbooks as well as medieval
texts such as Boccaccio’s Decameron. The „con-
fession“ is a literary text of licentious sexual fan-
tasies and is the work of perhaps a cleric or a
monk. The narrator clearly reveals his gender
through metaphors for male masturbation and
ejaculation that are inconsistent with a woman’s
experience of her body.
Anna Porbjörg Þorgrímsdóttir
Catering in private homes in Reykjavik
(Matseljur og kostgangarar í Reykjavík)
Catering in private homes was one of the few
trades in which women could rnake an indepen-
dent living when urbanization got under way dur-
ing the last decades of the 19th century. In
Reykjavík, the majority of these women were
widows who saw catering as a way of combining
the upbringing of children and paid employment.
Around the turn of the last century younger,
unmarried women, many of whom had been edu-
cated in home economics, were entering the
trade. The „golden age“ of catering in private
homes was etween 1900 and 1930. During the
Depression, however, the migration from the
countryside to Reykjavik was brought to a halt
for a while and the demand for catering services
was greatly reduced. The Second World War
undermined the private catering trade still fur-
ther and by the 1970s it had almost disappeared.
Sverrir Jakobsson
A Shadow King?
The Myth of Harold Fairhair
(Óþekkti konungurinn. Sagnir um Harald hárfagra)
In traditional historiography, Harold Fairhair (c.
850-930) is regarded as having been influential in
two important historical events: the unification of
Norway in the late 9th century and the conse-
quent settlement of Iceland. Yet this important
figure is not mentioned in a single contemporary
source and the first written accounts of him only
appear in the twelfth century. In this article the
author re-evaluates the evidence of the life of this
king, with special emphasis on facts which do not
seem compatible with the traditional versions
provided by medieval and modern historiogra-
phy. It is argued that more caution is needed in
the presentation of „the facts“ concerning this
king. When traditional methods of historical
research do not yield a satisfactory result, con-
fessing one’s ignorance is preferable to making
assumptions on the basis of insufficient evidence.
„Objectivity isn’t fashionable anymore“
Interview with Georg G. Iggers
The German-American scholar, Georg G. Iggers,
is renowned for his studies and writing on histori-
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