Gripla - 20.12.2005, Page 40

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texts) ensures the maintenance of an edificatory scheme that not only reveals
the saints’ blessedness but also conveys thematic doctrinal lessons by degrees
through characters surrounding the saint (and thence on to audience mem-
bers); the texts are effective and even authoritative (i.e., show ‘literary ex-
cellence’) due to their adherence to a model (here the life and death of
Christ).47 In the cases of those sagas that apparently were read as parts of
sermons, the unencumbered narratives (dialogue and action) are retained, yet
are oftentimes coupled with fittingly encomiastic portrayals of their blessed
subjects; even in these cases, however, the moralistic interplay between action
and ideology that lies at the heart of the narrative is never overshadowed or
blurred by rhetoric.
Further investigation of these apostles’ and saints’ lives, as well as vers-
ions of them in earlier or later manuscripts (the earlier AM 655 4to fragments,
for instance), along with studies of the numerous other early Icelandic trans-
lations of lives of confessors and martyrs would undoubtedly reveal more of
the type of findings delineated in previous critical studies: the use of sources
not previously recognized (such as that of Bede for Matthias’ saga, Pseudo-
Abdias for Peter’s saga, etc.), distinguishable stylistic groupings and linguistic
or stylistic correspondences between sagas that point to their composition by
particular schools or individuals (as, for instance, the sagas of Andrew, John,
and Matthias seem to have been composed at the same time or place or by the
same individual or individuals), sophisticated or sensitive modifications made
by translators in order to increase drama, highlight a theme or other contextual
issue, or to provide narrative or thematic unity, trends in adaptational practices
(the omission of material extraneous to the subject or repetitious passages, for
instance), and details of the structural or thematic schemes that may have been
transposed into other medieval Icelandic literary genres (family sagas,
bishops’ sagas, kings’ sagas, romances).
Such studies and findings would lead students and scholars to a far greater
knowledge of the literary and cultural milieu of twelfth- and thirteenth-century
47 Hagiographical rhetoric is impelled first and foremost, in the best examples, by an overriding
concern for the good of the listener, for the salvation of the listener and thus its author, and
for a working toward understanding and the providing of an example of truth. In keeping
with the medieval notion that ultimate truth is derived from models, hagiographical con-
ventions are ultimately derived from the perfect model of the life of Christ on earth; it
becomes formulaic and repetitive simply because the model is in place, and the ultimate goal
of the sober hagiographer is to imitate the model and thus provide a model of imitation for his
reader or listener, for the good of all concerned.