Gripla - 20.12.2009, Blaðsíða 166

GRIPLA166
that of medieval Latin Christendom for the most part, by another, that of
medieval Nordic vernacularity with an Icelandic inflection. Mediation of
course implies cultural transformation; transformation in its turn often
implies appropriation, and it is these processes that will be investigated
here, assuming that such intersections will provide a more balanced view
of the nature of the whole of medieval Icelandic textual production.
vernacularity
on the basis of the Icelandic texts that have survived from the medieval
period, one of the most striking characteristics of Icelandic textual produc­
tion is its vernacularity, its use of the vernacular as the normal means of
communication. It seems that, virtually from the beginning of written tex­
tuality using manuscripts, the impulse was to translate Latin (and some­
times other languages) into Icelandic rather than to disseminate Latin texts
in the original. Surviving works from the late twelfth century, such as frag­
ments of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (Hreinn Benediktsson 1963)
and the old Icelandic Elucidarius (Grimstad 1993), bear witness to this
impulse, and it continued throughout the medieval period. It is very likely,
however, that the number of Latin texts produced in both Iceland and
Norway has been seriously underestimated, and the same is probably true
of Latin texts emanating from outside Scandinavia (Gottskálk Þ. jensson
2003). Certainly, we know of a not inconsiderable number of lost Latin
works written by Norwegians and Icelanders (some of which were also
translated into the vernacular)1 and there are likely to have been others we
do not know about, which have not survived the Reformation, a time
when we can assume Latin texts were treated as the products of popery
and undervalued or destroyed.
While we can accept that the impulse towards vernacularity was very
strong in medieval Iceland, we must not confuse this situation with an
imputed ignorance of Latin on the part of either producers or consumers
of written texts in Iceland, in terms of their linguistic knowledge or their
access to Latin texts. It has been commonly assumed that the reason why
1 they include oddr Snorrason’s Latin life of óláfr tryggvason, Sæmundr fróði’s lost Latin
history of the Norwegian kings, the Flos peregrinationis of Gizurr Hallsson, the Latin life of
Bishop jón Ögmundarson by Gunnlaugr Leifsson (d. 1218/19) and a Latin life of Þorlákr
Þórhallsson, of which some fragments remain in AM 386 4to, c. 1200.