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what less work has been done on identifying new patristic sources, we can
now add at least one more name, john Chrysostom, to the impressive list
of early Christian authors whose works were known to the old norse
homilists.6
the nature of the sources and analogues discovered to date and the
fact that several of the pieces in the earliest Icelandic and norwegian col-
lections continued to be copied into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
have led thomas n. Hall to characterize the old West norse homiletic
corpus as “conservative,” “backward-looking,” and “antiquarian.”7 the
latest Latin author generally mentioned among major influences on the
genre is the early twelfth-century homilist and encyclopedist Honorius
Augustodunensis, but most of the identified Latin sources are a good deal
earlier than him.8 Indeed, Hans Bekker-nielsen was of the opinion that,
in terms of adapting earlier authorities, “Icelandic and norwegian church-
men seem to have stopped with confidence at the time of Charlemagne.”9
While the generalizations of Hall and, to a lesser extent, Bekker-nielsen
are arguably valid for the earliest homily collections, scholars would do
ren, hopper derimot gjerne over Gammelnorsk homiliebok og Islandsk homiliebok fordi
de ikke ser dem som relevante for senere prekenforfatteres arbeid (særlig tiggermunkene
i nord-europa).” A notable exception is the work of oddmund Hjelde (Norsk preken i
det 12. århundre: studier i Gammel Norsk homiliebok [oslo: (s.n.), 1990], especially 94–98,
404–405), who attempts to take the works of several twelfth-century Latin authors into ac-
count in his study of the norwegian Homily Book. see also the work of david Mcdougall
(“studies in the Prose style of the old Icelandic and old norwegian Homily Books” [Ph.d.
diss., university College London, 1983], 686–707), who shows that the sermon “Postola
mál” from the Icelandic Homily Book was partially adapted from a homily by Bruno of
segni (d. c. 1123).
6 stephen Pelle, “A new source for Part of an old Icelandic Christmas Homily,” Saga-Book
36 (2012): 102–116.
7 thomas n. Hall, “old norse-Icelandic sermons,” in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Mayne
kienzle, typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental, vols. 81–83 (turnhout: Brepols,
2000), 669.
8 In addition to Hall, “old norse-Icelandic sermons,” 669, see svanhildur óskarsdóttir,
“Prose of Christian Instruction,” in A Companion to Old Norse-Icelandic Literature and
Culture, ed. Rory Mcturk, Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture, vol. 31
(oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 340. An exception, again, is Hjelde, Norsk preken, 404–405.
9 Hans Bekker-nielsen, “the french Influence on ecclesiastical Literature in old norse,”
in Les relations littéraires franco-scandinaves au Moyen Age: Actes du Colloque de Liège, avril
1972, Bibliothèque de la faculté de philisophie et lettres de l’université de Liège, vol. 208
(Paris: société d’edition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1975), 144. Bekker-nielsen makes an import-
ant exception for the Victorines, who will be discussed below.
tWeLftH-CentuRy souRCes foR oLd noRse HoMILIes