Gripla - 20.12.2004, Page 252

GRIPLA250
219 fn. 1). This edition of Jóns saga, based on Foote’s recent edition for the
Editiones Arnamagnæana series, uses the S version as a basis, but also in-
cludes all material from the L or H versions which might witness to the con-
tents of the lost original version of the saga.
The S version is found in manuscripts associated with Skálholt, the oldest
of which (AM 221 fol) is a fragment from c.1300. The whole saga was copied
c. 1340 in AM 234 fol, the best preserved text of this version, from which all
other surviving manuscripts descend. The L version survives in incomplete
form, ending with chapter 25, in Sth perg fol nr 5 from shortly after 1360, and
four leaves in AM 219 fol date from around 1400; paper manuscripts from the
seventeenth century descend from Sth perg fol nr 5. This redaction is dis-
tinguished by its Latinate style, which has been compared with that of Bergr
Sokkason. Peter Foote concludes his discussion of the evidence for the dating
of this version (which includes its intertextual relations with other bishops’
sagas and with Dunstanus saga) by suggesting that it was produced c.1320 or
a little later (p. ccxxxiii). The two surviving manuscripts of the H version
(both connected with Hólar) are from the seventeenth century (Sth perg 4to nr
4 and AM 392 4to). This version is closer in style to the S than the L version,
but shares one reference to Gunnlaugr Leifsson with the L version and also
agrees with L (and some other texts in this collection) in following the
chronology of the French or Lotharingian computist Gerland, which is seven
years behind our calendar.
Jón is appointed the first bishop of Hólar when Bishop Gizurr Ísleifsson is
asked to establish an additional see in the north. Jón is said to have been a
great preacher and — what is rarer — someone who practised what he
preached. He also encourages private devotions among his flock: attendance
at the offices, recitation of the Creed on waking, learning the Pater Noster and
Creed by heart (chapter 8; the L version adds the Ave Maria, an indication of
its later date and the influence of European Marian devotion). Miracles are
performed by Jón during his lifetime, but the saga notes that people were
reluctant to call them miracles while he was alive, and cites biblical precedent
for this (chapter 9). Jón dies on 23 April 1121 and is buried outside the church
at Hólar for a little less than eighty years, after which Bishop Brandr has the
relics exhumed and brought inside: this edition prints accounts of this event
from all three versions of the saga (pp. 271–74).
The rest of Jóns saga helga — most of the text — consists of an extensive
collection of posthumous miracles, including many healings. A remarkably