Gripla - 01.01.1993, Page 234

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GRIPLA
effect, Arngímr dwells on Guðmundr’s championship of papal, uni-
versalist interests. A comparison of selected passages on Guðmundr’s
principal adversaries, the chieftains Kolbeinn Tumason (d. 1208)10 and
Sighvatr Sturluson (d. 1238),11 with the respective accounts in Sturla
Þórðarson’s history will demonstrate this advocacy.12 The matter on
Kolbeinn deals with 1. a typological rebuke that brands Kolbeinn as
Henricus novus, i.e. as a second Henry II of England (1133-89); 2. Kol-
beinn’s death and redemption. The discussion of Sighvatr, Guð-
mundr’s arch foe, revolves around Arngrímr’s puzzling preference for
repeated attempts to canonize Guðmundr, see Magnús Már Lárusson, “Guðmundr inn
góði Arason,“ Kulturhistorisk leksikon, V, 538-42. On the process of canonization, see
Eric Waldram Kemp, Canonization and Authority in the Western Church (Oxford: Uni-
versity Press, 1948); Benedicta Ward, Miracles atid the Medieval Mind. Theory, Record
and Event 1000-1215 (London: Scolar Press, 1982), pp. 184-91, for the stringent papal
standards on canonization introduced by Alexander III (1159-81); Cf. Stephan Kuttner,
“La Réserve papale du Droit de Canonisation," Revue historique de droit franqais et étr-
anger, 2. series, 17 (1938), 172-228, who shows, in a closely reasoned argument, that the
papal prerogative of canonization was not promulgated by Alexander III, but was codif-
ied by his eighth successor, Gregory IX, in 1234, in a collection of decretals, “De reliqui-
is et veneratione sanctorum." On political consideration by the papacy, see Michael
Goodich, “The politics of canonization in the thirteenth century: lay and Mendicant sa-
ints,“ [repr. from Church History, 1975], Saints and their Cults. Studies in Religious
Sociology, Folklore and History, ed., introd. Stephen Wilson (Cambridge: University
Press, 1983), 169-87 and André Vauchez, La Sainteté en Occident aux derniers Siecles du
Moyen Age d’aprés les Procés de Canonisation et les Documents hagiographiques
(Rome: Ecole Fran<;aise de Rome, 1981), p. 81, on the disdain of the curia for countries
at the geographic periphery of Rome, which might explain the failure to obtain Guð-
mundr’s canonization.
111 See in particular, Kolbeinn’s role in and attitude to Guðmundr’s election, chs. 20-
22, pp. 212-19; litigation on behalf of Ásbjörn, the Priest, unnamed by Arngrímr, ch. 28,
pp. 245-48; Kolbeinn’s death, chs. 33-35, pp. 259-67; also, Jón Margeirsson, “Ágrein-
ingsefni Kolbeins Tumasonar og Guðmundar Arasonar,” Skagfirðingabók, 14 (1985),
pp. 121-44; F. Paasche, “Kolbein Tumeson,“ Norsk biografisk leksikon 7 (Kristiania: H.
Aschehoug, 1929), pp. 531-32.
11 Chs. 35, 47, 53, 58, 61, 65, 67, 70, 77, pp. 266-68, 300, 328, 331, 347^19, 362, 374,
390, 403, 427.
12 The principal passages discussed in íslendinga saga are in chronological sequence:
Guðmundr’s election in 1201, his rancorous relations with Kolbeinn after confirmation
in 1203 to Kolbeinn’s death, September 8,1208 (chs. 12,19-21, pp. 238, 243—19); Bishop
Guðmundr’s dealings with Sturla Sighvatsson in 1228,1230, and 1231 (chs. 62, 79, 82, pp.
318, 342, 346); the archiepiscopal summons to Sighvatr and Sturla Sighvatsson in 1232,
and Sturla’s pilgrimage (chs. 88, 90, 92, pp. 360, 361, 363-64).