Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 69

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the more secular character of nordic and particularly Icelandic society? It
seems at least that the laity – in Iceland the chieftains and their followers,
in Norway the royal court – was a very important literary audience. Nor is
there any doubt that the Icelandic church was weaker than its counterparts
in most other areas of Europe. The episcopal sees were poor, there were
no cathedral chapters and the church was largely under the control of lay
chieftains until the end of the 13th century. By contrast, the Norwegian
church seems to have been relatively – but of course not absolutely –
wealthier than the European average and had a considerable amount of
independence from the king. 47 In accordance with this, Norwegian litera­
ture is also less secular than the Icelandic one. nevertheless, the distinctly
secular character of the old norse literature should not be exaggerated.
the great majority of texts in old norse are actually religious: sermons,
saints’ lives and other devotional literature, and there was also a consider­
able secular literature in other countries at the time. the most characteris­
tic feature of the literature of Iceland and Norway – as far as we can judge
from what is extant – is the absence of scholasticism and theological – as
opposed to devotional – writing. From this point of view, the main weak­
ness of the Icelandic and Norwegian churches, in contrast to their Danish
and Swedish counterparts, was that they had very limited contact with the
expanding european universities and thus only developed a specifically
clerical elite culture to a limited extent.
the classical saga is, to a considerable extent, the product of the pre­
state Icelandic society and expresses this society’s values. The writing of
the kings’ saga reached its peak during the intense struggles in Iceland in
the 1220s and -30s and declined with the formation of a strong monarchy
in Norway and the Icelanders’ submission to the king of Norway in
1262–64. The writing of the family sagas continued, probably for the rest
of the century, but whether they were composed before or after 1262–64
47 Halvard Bjørkvik, “nyare forskning i norsk seinmellomalder”, Norsk lektorlags faglig­
pedagogiske skrifter. Nytt fra norsk middelalder II (oslo: Cappelen, 1970), p. 88, suggests that
the Church owned around 40% of the land incomes around 1300, whereas the European
average is unlikely to have been more than 20–30%. Although this calculation is uncertain
and has been criticised, most recently by jo Rune ugulen,“alle the knaber ther inde och
sædescwenne…” Ei undersøking i den sosiale samansetninga av den jordeigande eliten på Vestlandet
i mellomalderen (Doctoral thesis, Bergen 2007), pp. 521–77, there are indications that the
Norwegian Church at the time was very wealthy.
noRDIC unIQueneSS In tHe MIDDLe AGeS?