Gripla - 20.12.2004, Page 33

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON STJÓRN 31
there24, and more likely that the work was left unfinished, though for reasons
we can only surmise. A plausible conjecture is that it was the death of King
Hákon that brought the work to a premature end. That would also explain why
the prologue contains no dedication and no statement of the work’s intended
scope.
This conjecture is supported by a further consideration. If work on the
translation and commentary came to a sudden end with the death of King Há-
kon, we may be assured that no final, revised manuscript of the whole of it
ever existed; possibly the idea of completing the project excited little interest
in Norwegian court circles. A copy of what there was of Stjórn I then came to
Iceland — or was it perhaps the compiler’s own working copy that travelled
across the sea? If we assume circumstances like these, we may be closer to an
explanation of the curious fact that there is no Norwegian manuscript of Stjórn
I, not even a scrap of one, while Norwegian collections preserve fragments of
three copies written in Iceland and in all probability made for export and the
benefit of Norwegian readers (cf. Sverrir Tómasson 1988:352–355).
Storm (1886b:256) dated Stjórn I to about 1310 and he has been followed
in this by most other commentators. His date was really no more than a guess
at a year that fell tidily in the middle of King Hákon’s reign. There is no posi-
tive evidence to support it, and the considerations discussed above suggest it
is rather too early.
Dr Selma Jónsdóttir (1971:54–56) voiced doubts about the authenticity of
the prologue and canvassed the notion that it might have been composed at a
later date in order to add to the work’s esteem (cf. Sverrir Tómasson 1988:
355). This proposal chiefly depended on her belief that the author of Stjórn I
had possibly made use of a version of Nikulás saga composed by the Ice-
lander, Bergr Sokkason, who in 1322 became prior and in 1325 abbot of the
Benedictine house of Munkaflverá. It has however been shown that the re-
semblance between these works is due to the fact that their authors made
independent use of the same source-material (Jakob Benediktsson 1984:7–11).
Other scholars have noted elements in the language of Stjórn I which they
24 Selma Jónsdóttir (1971:56–57) pointed out that the geographical description in Stjórn I
(Unger 1862:73) refers to the city of Susa „er getit ver›r í sƒgu Hester af konunginum
Assuero“ (cf. Esther 1:1–2), and that this clause is not found in Speculum historiale which is
otherwise the author’s source. But we cannot be certain that this means that he expected to
carry the work on so far.