Gripla - 01.01.1993, Side 238

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GRIPLA
The principle that canon law was to be applied in cases of conflict was
not yet accepted,24 particularly not by Kolbeinn, his allies and friends.
The wrangling about the precedence of canon law caused much of the
bitterness between Guðmundr and chieftains. They correctly viewed
the prospect of introducing canon law as superior to customary law as
a diminution of their power.
Kolbeinn as the ‘novus Henricus’
The analogy is based upon historical facts, Henry II’s sponsorship of
Thomas of Becket’s candidacy as archbishop of Canterbury and upon
the wrath he directed toward Thomas during his term in office. Equal-
ly important, however, is the disguised secular ambition that had
prompted Henry’s choice of Thomas, his hope to control, via Thomas,
ecclesiastical affairs of the realm. Henry sought, in effect, the dom-
inance of secular law over canon law. Accordingly, Arngrímr intro-
duces the Henricus novus theme during the deliberations on Guð-
mundr’s election to the northern see of Skálholt. Kolbeinn backed
Guðmundr, his kinsman, against the candidate from the south. Kol-
beinn’s advocacy was, however, also specious. His attitude was one of
deliberate craftiness. From the start, he intended to humiliate Guð-
mundr and to use him as a tool. This duplicity is, as Arngrímr states, at
the heart of the typological theme. What matters is not the difference
in status between king and chieftain, but the similarity between their
self-serving advocacy and subsequent persecution of the man they had
catapulted to high office.
That Arngrímr also intended the Henricus novus theme to be an im-
plicit leitmotif, is evident in his version and traditional interpretation of
an act that, on the surface, merely indicated Kolbeinn’s disdain for the
episcopal office and its office holder.25 On the evening of the election,
at the banquet hosted by Kolbeinn, the tablecloth was ragged. Indeed,
‘4 A revised version of ecclesiastical law was accepted in principle at the Althing in
1275 under the auspices of the bishop of Skálholt, Árni Þorláksson (1269-98) for his
diocese. In Hólar, canon law supplanted the indigenous ecclesiastical code only in 1354.
See Jarl Gallén, “Kyrkorátt," Kiilturhistorisk leksikon 10 (1965), col. 2; Magnús Már
Lárusson. “Jurisdiktion - Island," Kulturhistorisk teksikon 8 (1963), cols. 42-43; Björn
Þorsteinsson, íslenzk miðaldasaga (Reykjavík: Sögufélagið, 1978), pp. 204-06.
25 See also Guðmundar saga A, ch. 102, p. 130; Prestssaga Guðmundar góða, in Sturl-
unga saga, I, ch. 26, p. 153.