Gripla - 20.12.2009, Side 55

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spread in the central parts of Western Christendom from around 1200, its
use for administrative purposes in Norway and Iceland was more excep­
tional. In Norway, the royal chancery confined its use of Latin almost
exclusively to letters to other countries and in a few cases to the Church;
ecclesiastical institutions also made extensive use of the vernacular,
although less than the royal chancery.9 this differs clearly from Danish
and Swedish practice where Latin was used almost exclusively until the
second half of the 14th century, and also from most other european chan­
ceries. The only parallel – except for Iceland which, of course, had no royal
chancery – is Anglo-Saxon England which is likely to have influenced
Norwegian practice, as Christianity and thereby writing was introduced to
Norway mainly from England. Early Norwegian letters seem to have been
modelled on the Anglo-Saxon writ.10 the Anglo­Saxon practice in issuing
writs in the vernacular continued for some generations after the Norman
Conquest which makes it more likely that it could have influenced the
Norwegian one. While in England, a change to Latin took place gradually
in the period after the Conquest, the use of the vernacular continued in
Norway where there was no comparable revolution. A further reason for
the continued use of the vernacular in Norway may be that the less wealthy
and exclusive Norwegian aristocrats might not have been as well equipped
with clerical expertise as their European counterparts; the importance of
propaganda during the troubled period in the second half of the 12th cen­
tury, which may have stimulated writing in the vernacular, might also be
taken into consideration. the extant Speech against the Bishops is one exam­
ple of this and there may have been others, although we have no evidence.
Finally, the existence of written laws in the vernacular may have been of
some importance as a stimulus to issue the amendments, of which we have
some examples from the 12th century, in the same language.
the link to Anglo­Saxon england may possibly explain other aspects of
Norwegian-Icelandic culture. Directly or indirectly, Norway and Iceland
9 See the list in johan Agerholt, Gamal brevskipnad. Etterrøkjingar og utgreidingar i norsk
diplomatik, (oslo: Gundersen, 1929–32), 648–57, which includes twenty five letters from
the king in Old Norse before 1280. By contrast, there are only four in Latin to Norwegian
recipients, all ecclesiastical institutions. During the same period, the bishops are known to
have issued eighteen letters in Latin and twenty-seven in Old Norse to Norwegian recipi­
ents.
10 Agerholt, Brevskipnad, 646, with reference to Bresslau.
noRDIC unIQueneSS In tHe MIDDLe AGeS?