Saga - 2011, Page 142

add anything new to what has been discussed by Konrad Maurer,
Peter Andreas Munch, and later, Björn Ólsen.17 Indeed, contrary to
what Helgi Skúli Kjartansson and Helgi Þorláksson say,18 Jóhannes -
son’s essay does not offer a thorough analysis of the documents: it
does not thoroughly assess the text and context of the documents of
the submission per se, but uses them as instruments for drawing
together the account in the sagas and annals.19
Jón Jóhannesson seems to omit from his essay the documents
which appear in Diplomatarium Islandicum as „Gamli sáttmáli
1264“.20 (For all its problems, Jón Sigurðsson’s classification tries to
make sense of all extant documents, and does not sweep under the
carpet those which do not fit his pattern.) Jón Sigurðsson dates these
agreements to 1264 because they do not contain the aforementioned
oath that refers to King Hákon Hákonarson and his son Magnús. He
argues that the former would not have been invoked in the oath
after his death in December 1263. The documents in this group pre-
sent some noteworthy details which Jón Sigurðsson (or Jón
Jóhannesson, for that matter) does not discuss. Two manuscripts in
this group, AM 175 a 4° and GKS 3269 b 4°, contain the words „et
cetera“, which might have meant that the oath would follow. AM
151 4º contains a clause which is similar to those found in a differ-
ent group of documents;21 it also has a final clause from a legal doc-
ument dated to 1265.22 Other manuscripts in the group have differ-
patricia pires boulhosa142
(Patricia Boulhosa, Icelanders and the Kings of Norway, p. 106, and Gamli sáttmáli:
Tilurð og tilgangur, p. 29).
17 Regarding the dating of a group of documents to 1263–1264 or to 1302 —
Munch and Maurer were, to the best of my knowledge, the first scholars to
suggest that some of the documents should be dated 1302. Per Andreas
Munch, Det norske folks historie, 6 vols (Oslo: Tønsberg 1852–1863), IV.I (1858),
pp. 367–369; Konrad Maurer, Island von seiner ersten Entdeckung bis zum
Untergange des Freistaats (Munich: Kaiser 1874), pp. 470–73, and Udsigt over de
nordgermaniske retskilders historie. Trans. by Ebbe Hertzberg (Oslo: Brøgger
1878), pp. 86–87.
18 Helgi Þorláksson, „Er Gamli sáttmáli tómur tilbúningur“, p. 393, Helgi Skúli
Kjartansson, „Gamli sáttmáli — hvað næst?“, p. 139.
19 Patricia Boulhosa, Icelanders and the Kings of Norway, pp. 89–90.
20 Diplomatarium Islandicum I, nr. 156, pp. 669–716.
21 Jón Sigurðsson dates them as 1302-agreements but Ólsen suggests 1306: see
below.
22 Jónsbók: Lögbók Íslendinga. Ed. Már Jónsson (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan 2004),
pp. 31, 303. Diplomatarium Islandicum II, nr. 3, pp. 5–11.
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