Gripla - 20.12.2005, Síða 17

STYLISTICS AND SOURCES OF THE POSTOLA SÖGUR 15
lations of hagiographical texts owes itself to the formal study of rhetoric,
taught in the church schools in Iceland using textbooks common to Europe in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, such as Donatus’ Ars Major, Priscian’s
Institutiones grammaticae, and, in particular, Augustine’s De doctrina chri-
stiania.13 The varying levels of style within the hagiographical texts should be
considered in the light of Augustine’s definitions of style and recommenda-
tions on their use, from the general simple style of sermo humilis, which made
the texts accessible and clear to unlearned as well as learned audiences (re-
flecting in Icelandic vernacular texts, perhaps, what is called the ‘popular’ or
‘saga style’), to more rhetorically charged passages that might reflect the inter-
mediate or lofty styles.14
Adaptational practices varied of course from text to text, depending on the
time period in which the texts were written and the rhetorical levels of source
texts. Concerning the apostles’ and saints’ lives found in the AM 645 4to and
AM 652/630 4to manuscripts, they do not possess the same stylistic homo-
geneity as found in later manuscripts, in particular, Codex Scardensis. The 645
and 652/630 texts can in fact be separated stylistically into three main
groups, and in the following I give a summary of the main characteristics of
refuses to accept Latin literature as a vital element in the whole of Icelandic literary produc-
tion or ‘modes of thought’ (and following this, we should more readily accept the idea that
Icelandic literature owes a great deal to Latin narrative traditions), and it is highly at odds
with the sentiments expressed by Ari fiorgilsson in his Íslendingabók, when he reiterates
Iceland’s dedication to church culture and quite emphatically declares Icelanders’ excellence
in upholding the finest values of that culture. Fortunately, however, most attitudes are not as
drastic as those that hold that the translated apostles’ lives are ‘not Icelandic’.
13 A copy of Augustine’s De doctrina christiania is listed in the inventory of the Vi›ey monas-
tery in the late-fourteenth century; there are fragments of Donatus’ Ars minor in the manu-
script AM 921 4to, from around 1400, and the second part of the Third Grammatical Treatise
by Ólafr fiór›arson hvítaskáld, written around 1250, is based on Book III of Donatus’ Ars
major; Priscian’s Institutiones is named in the inventory of the Mö›ruvellir monastery for
1461. Evidence suggests that all of these texts existed and were in use in the schools in
Iceland in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. See Sverrir Tómasson 1992:519-520 and
Collings 1967:1-2.
14 The idea that the similarities in style between the earliest translated hagiographical texts in
Iceland and the Icelandic family sagas resulted from a shared response by their writers to
formal rhetorical training (as suggested by Sverrir Tómasson 1994:49-50) is perhaps more
plausible than the notion of influence from one genre to the other conveyed in Gabriel
Turville-Petre’s famous dictum that the Icelanders learned from saints’ lives how to put
biographies and „wonder-tales“ in books (see Turville-Petre 1953:142). For further
information on the study of rhetoric in the schools in medieval Iceland, see especially Sverrir
Tómasson 1988, and Collings 1967.