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GRIPLA
hjálptu skáldi þínu,“ ‘My Lord and Saint Mary, save your skald’)37 by
entreating Jesus and the Mother of Mercy to illuminate Kolbeinn and
to guide him to the right path. Of significance is that, prior to the abso-
lution, Kolbeinn had regained his consciousness (he had been struck
down by a stone), a sign that he recovered from the spiritual blindness
that had governed his acts.
That Guðmundr’s intercessory prayer was for Kolbeinn’s redemp-
tion is palpable in the drawn-out death scene. With Guðmundr's
promptings, Kolbeinn repented his sins against the bishop, pledged to
accept the judgment of the church and vowed to abandon his way of
life.38 The poem was the first probe of Kolbeinn’s spiritual state. The
second was Kolbeinn’s deep remorse. Less directly, but forcefully,
Arngrímr also suggests that even the prima causa of Kolbeinn’s re-
morse was Guðmundr’s spiritual state. Referring to a widely held
opinion, Arngrímr asserts that the stone, which hit Kolbeinn, was none
other than the bishop’s innocence that was cast in an act of divine ret-
ribution (ch. 35. p. 264). The evidence for this conviction was the fact
that no one confessed to or was seen to have hurled the stone. Un-
stated but implicit is the scriptural dictum that “the invisible things of
God are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are
made“ (Rom. 1, 20).39
There is no intercession in íslendinga saga, since none was needed.
Kolbeinn never lost consciousness and swore to settle his differences
with Guðmundr. Two questions arise. Did Sturla know this poem and
did he attribute its composition to Kolbeinn’s final attack on Hólar? If,
37
Ch. 34, pp. 263-64; See also B. Poschmann, Pénitence et onction des malades, His-
toire des dogmes IV.3 (Paris: 1966), p. 139.
38
Arngrímr’s description confirms with practice. Hxtreme unction was administered
only after confession. See Rouet de Journel, “La liturgie des sacrements en particulier,
chapitre IV. - La penitence; la discipline depuis le Xiiie siécle," in Liturgia, Encyclop-
edie popttlaire des connaissances liturgiques, ed. l’Abbé R. Aigrain (Paris: Librarie
Bloud et Gay, 1947), ch. 5, p. 728.
39
The same thought is expressed in “Sermo de sancta MaRÍa,“ Gantal Norsk Ho-
miliebok Cod. AM 619 4°, ed. Gustav Indrebp (Oslo: Jacob Dybwad, 1931), p. 132, lines
1-4. Nancy F. Partner, Serious Entertainments. The Writing of History in Twelfth-Cent-
ury England (Chicago: University Press. 1977), pp. 219-20, cites an analogue in William
of Newburgh, Historia rerum Anglicarum, ed. Richard Howlett, Rolls Series 82 (Lon-
don, 1884-1885), pp. 329-30, that refers to the sudden death of Frederick Barbarossa as
“atonement for his past sins.“ See also Guðmundar saga Arasonar, ch. 7, p. 169, accord-