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of Christian piety, in both Latin and the vernacular european languages,
has only recently begun to be fully acknowledged.
As well as other kinds of Icelandic textual production, Christian skaldic
poetry demonstrates both dependence on and independence of the larger
European cultural world. As a poetic kind, skaldic verse is unique, but the
messages it conveyed were part of the culture of Christian Europe trans­
lated to Icelandic practices and conditions. the texts in both prose and
poetry produced by Icelandic writers to further the cults of Christian saints
are very good examples of this kind of translation. Although Iceland did
eventually have several of its own native saints, for whom considerable
local textual production was undertaken in order to further their cults, and
though other Scandinavian saints, particularly S. Óláfr, were of particular
importance and again generated indigenous vitae, the cults of foreign saints
and the apostles were far more numerous. By participating in the cults of
foreign saints, and composing vernacular texts in their honour, Icelanders
were able to participate themselves in the universal (as it was then seen)
and in the local at the same time. There were local cults of foreign saints,
both male and female, all over Iceland and a multiplicity of vernacular lives,
mostly based on Latin exemplars, to celebrate them. In this, Iceland was
little different from the rest of medieval Christendom. What was powerful
– what worked for the faithful – were local cults that could be seen to have
links to the wider Christian world. As the anonymous fourteenth-century
poet of Heilagra meyja drápa put it (stanza 18), thinking of S. Cecilia, “the
northern world and holy Rome (Heimrinn norðr og heilög Róma) receive
comfort from a bright maiden” (Wolf 2007, 2, 903), or, as the poet of
Heilagra manna drápa expressed it (stanza 18/5–8), thinking of S. Blaise,
who was known for his ability to cure diseases of the throat, “God’s spirit
has worked miracles, which are still revealed in our country (á váru landi)
by means of this dear friend for the healing of a countless number of
people” (Wolf 2007, 2, 885). A glance at Margaret Cormack’s book on the
saints in Iceland (1994) will show that there were active cults of these and
many other foreign saints in medieval Iceland, alongside cults of local and
Scandinavian saints.
to conclude, in medieval Icelandic texts and practices, largely because
of the universalist claims of Christian culture and its dominance through­
out medieval Europe, the Icelandic variant of Nordic civilisation was both
MeDIevAL ICeLAnDIC teXtuAL CuLtuRe