Gripla - 20.12.2005, Síða 158

GRIPLA156
ferr“ (‘until it is found out which way this matter will go’) is ominous. While
Gizurr and Hjalti’s defence of their countrymen in Oddr’s Óláfs saga Tryggva-
sonar and Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar en mesta attributes fiangbrandr’s failure as
a missionary to his moral unsuitability (Óláfs saga Tryggvasonar:127, ÓlTm
II:164), in Kristni saga the two Icelanders focus instead on his nationality: „En
fiangbrandr fór flar sem hér heldr óspakliga; drap hann flar menn nƒkkura, ok
flótti mƒnnum hart at taka flat af útlendum manni“ (‘But fiangbrandr behaved
there as here, in a very unruly manner, he killed several men there, and people
thought it hard to take that from a foreigner’). Indeed, the very decision to
detach Icelandic conversion history from the life of the Norwegian king Óláfr
Tryggvason emphasises in a politically significant way the independent role of
the Icelandic chieftains in the conversion of their country. This explains why
Kristni saga opens with the Icelander fiorvaldr’s self-motivated mission,
frames its narrative with lists of Icelandic chieftains, and mentions with ap-
proval the many worthy men ordained as priests in the days of Gizurr „fló at
hƒf›ingjar væri“ (‘although they were chieftains’; ÍF XV:42-43). It may also
explain why the saga fails to list, like Íslendingabók and Hungrvaka, the
foreign clerics who visited Iceland, jumping instead fifty years from Gizurr
the White’s success at the Althing to his son Ísleifr’s consecration as the first
bishop in Skálholt (ÍF I:18, ÍF XVI:11-12).8 Significantly, the one brief men-
tion foreign bishops are granted is in the context of an unfavourable com-
parison with Ísleifr (ÍF XV:39): „Hér váru fyrst útlendir byskupar ok kendu
kenningar. En er landsmenn vissu hversu ágætr klerkr Ísleifr var bá›u lands-
menn hann at hann fœri útan ok léti vígjask til byskups“ (‘First there were
foreign bishops here teaching Christian doctrine. But when the people of the
country realised what an excellent cleric Ísleifr was, the people of the country
asked him to go abroad and have himself consecrated bishop’). The opposition
of útlendir menn and landsmenn recalls both Gizurr and Hjalti’s criticism of
fiangbrandr and fiorgeirr’s famous contrast between kings and landsmenn in
his speech at the Law-Rock: in this saga, it is landsmenn who are responsible
both for the peaceful conversion of the country, and for the successful
establishment of the Church under Ísleifr and Gizurr.
8 This omission puzzled Brenner (1878:6-8, 14), who took it as evidence that Kristni saga was
not originally intended as a church history, but merely as an appendix of miscellaneous
information relating to Landnámabók.