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the Icelandic calendars ascribe the dies natale the rank of a Holy Day of
obligation of the highest level with preceding vigils, while the translatio
was kept as a Holy Day of obligation. In both cases, mass was prescribed,
labour was interdicted, and a fast preceded the winter feast. In addition,
two calendars mention the ordinatio Thorlaci on 2nd July, though the rank
of this feast is not evident.3
the commemoration in mass and prayer of the hours triggered the
composition of proper liturgical texts and song. fragments of a mass rite
for 23rd December and for 2nd July are preserved,4 as well as adapted
prayers5 and lectiones for the prayer of the hours for both feasts.6 Also sur-
viving is an officium for the dies natale from the thirteenth century which
displays Dominican influence.7 In addition to these liturgical composi-
tions, we also find literary efforts in both old norse and Latin. In old
norse, miracles are transmitted in three partly dependant collections, and
sagas about Þorlákr reflect three stages of revision from the thirteenth to
the seventeenth centuries.8 there are also fragments of two Latin lives of
St Þorlákr, the first in the style of a gesta episcoporum from around 1200,
and the second in the form of a more elaborate vita from the first half of
the thirteenth century.9 the second fragment group shows signs of liturgi-
cal re-use. the Icelandic narratives appear to have been adaptated from the
Latin, albeit with numerous misunderstandings.10
3 MSS aM 249 f fol. and GKS add 1 fol., see Margaret Cormack, The Saints in Iceland: Their
Veneration from the Conversion to 1400, Subsidia hagiographica 78 (Bruxelles: Société des
Bollandistes, 1994), 159.
4 Copenhagen DKB MS nKS 1265 II a fol. and reykjavík Lbs fragm 25, see Lilli Gjerløw,
Liturgica Islandica, Bibliotheca arnamagnæana 35–36 (Copenhagen: reitzel, 1980), vol. 1,
68–69.
5 Eighteenth-century copy MS aM 241 b IX fol. (fol. 10r), see ibid., vol. 1, 69–70.
6 Jakob Benediktsson, “Brot úr Þorlákslesi,” Afmælisrit Jóns Helgasonar 30. júní 1969, eds.
Jakob Benediktsson and Jón Samsonarson, (reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1969).
7 Róbert Abraham Ottósson, Sancti Thorlaci episcopi officia rhytmica et proprium missæ in AM
241 a folio, Bibliotheca arnamagnæana 3 (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1959), esp. 71–72.
8 Ásdís Egilsdóttir, “St Þorlákr of Iceland,” 123–24.
9 Ibid., 124–25; Jón Helgason, ed., Byskupa sögur 2, Editiones arnamagnæanæ 13:1 (Copen-
hagen: Munksgaard, 1978), 161–74.
10 Ásdís Egilsdóttir, “St Þorlákr of Iceland,” 125; Gottskálk Jensson and Susanne Miriam
fahn, “the forgotten Poem: a Latin Panegyric for Saint Þorlákr in aM 382 4to,” Gripla
XXI (2010): 49–54; Gottskálk Jensson, “*revelaciones thorlaci episcopi,” 139–141.