Gripla - 20.12.2004, Qupperneq 248

GRIPLA246
The first volume of the new edition (published most recently of those that
have appeared) comprises two separate parts, one containing introductory
material, and the other the texts themselves. The first part begins with two
general essays introducing the edition as a whole. Ásdís Egilsdóttir puts the
bishops’ sagas into a literary historical context, relating them to European
hagiography and to the gesta episcoporum. She uses an Icelandic version of a
martyr’s passio (Lárentíus saga píslarvotts) and Snorri Sturluson’s saga of St
Óláfr in Heimskringla to illustrate the conventions of hagiography for a non-
specialist audience and then proceeds to discussion of the rise of confessors’
cults, noting that the Icelandic bishops who became saints belong to a sub-
group of ‘holy bishops’, many of whose vitae were translated into Icelandic
(p. xvii). Gu›rún Ása Grímsdóttir contributes an essay which puts the con-
version and Christianisation of Iceland into a broader European historical per-
spective. She also provides a brief overview of some aspects of Icelandic
ecclesiastical history, drawing on material other than the bishops’ sagas (an-
nals, diplomas and the máldagar).
These essays are followed by introductions to the texts which occupy the
second part of ÍF XV, beginning with Kristni saga, which is edited and in-
troduced by Sigurgeir Steingrímsson. This saga, which spans the period 981–
1121, can be dated to between c.1237–50 on the basis of comparison with
other texts (ÍF XV:cliv). A fragment of the text is preserved in Hauksbók (AM
371 4to; copied c.1300) and a complete copy in a seventeenth-century manu-
script, AM 105 fol. Sturla fiór›arson has been suggested as a possible author
of the saga, but although many saga editors in the past have given the im-
pression that hunting down named individuals as authors of anonymous texts
was some kind of obligatory sport, Sigurgeir Steingrímsson seems happy to
accept that ‘[h]öfundur sögunnar er óflekktur’ (ÍF XV:clv).
The writer of Kristni saga provides a fuller (though not necessarily trust-
worthy) account of events reported in Ari fiorgilsson’s Íslendingabók. The
saga begins with fiorvaldr Ko›ránsson raiding abroad and encountering and
being baptized by a bishop Fri›rekr. At fiorvaldr’s invitation the bishop comes
to Iceland to evangelise, with fiorvaldr acting as interpreter. The activities of
the bishop and his assistant open them to ridicule, however, and fiorvaldr takes
revenge for some scurrilous verses accusing him of having fathered nine
children on Fri›rekr. The bishop refuses to remain in his company after this
and they go their separate ways. After the failure of a further mission to Ice-
land by an Icelander called Stefnir, Óláfr Tryggvason sends his priest fiang-