Gripla - 20.12.2018, Page 210

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baptized. urban said that this was a valid baptism, and thus he changed
the law.21
In most of its manuscripts, the older Christian Law states that a man
must baptize, but if he does not know how, it is lawful for a woman to
teach him how to do it. She may not herself baptize.22 Three of the manu-
scripts state, however, that a woman may baptize in an emergency if no
men or boys seven years old or older who know the baptismal formula
were present.23 Árni’s Christian Law, as expected, make no distinction
between the genders.24
this passage in the Icelandic law raises at least two interesting issues.
first, the rule that boys may baptize from the age of seven is not, to the
best of my knowledge, found in European canon law. this rule appears,
thus, to be a Scandinavian invention. It is a reasonable interpretation
of general canon law, since that law stipulated that seven is the age of
reason,25 but the point is that the rule itself is only found in the north.
21 or, strictly speaking, the law was changed when urban’s verdict was included in canon
law as a precedent, which it quickly was, see Gratian, Decretum (second recension) C.
30 q. 3 c. 4, ed. Corpus iuris canonici, 1.1101: “Super quibus consuluit nos tua dilectio, hoc
uidetur nobis ex sentencia respondendum, ut et baptismus sit, si instante necessitate femina
puerum in nomine trinitatis baptizauerit.” Gratian referred to this passage immediately
after quoting the opposing view from the Statuta ecclesia, see de cons. D. 4 d.p.c. 20, ed.
Corpus iuris canonici, 1. 1367: “nisi necessitate cogente. unde urbanus II…” See also Landro,
“Kristenrett og kyrkjerett,” 30; Bonacina, Tractatuum moralium de casibus conscientiae ...
tomus, 50, tractatus de sacramentis, disp. 2, quest. 2, punct. 5, no. 5. Sveinbjörn rafnsson,
Af fornum lögum og sögum, 41, claims, relying on a statement in the Law of frostathing, that
archbishop Jón Birgisson of trondheim appears as the legislator (“löggjafi”) effecting this
change. this is true but misleading. Jón may have been characterized thus in the Law of
the frostathing, but the actual legislator was Pope urban II.
22 Grágás: Konungsbók, 6: “karlmaþr á skirn at veita barninv. enn ef hann kan eigi orð til
eþa atferli. oc er rett at kona kenni honvm.” Similarly in Skálholtsbók, Belgsdalsbók,
arnarbælisbók, aM 158 b 4to, aM 50 8vo, and aM 173 c 4to, see Grágás: Skálholtsbók etc.,
5, 100, 150, 196, 234, and 276.
23 Grágás: Staðarhólsbók, 5: “Skira scal kona barn ef eigi ero karlar til.” Similarly, Staðarfellsbók
and Leirárgarðabók (as known through paper copies), see Grágás: Skálholtsbók etc., 58 and
297.
24 “Kristinréttur Árna” ch. 8: “Enn ef barn er með litlom mętti [fæ]dt oc nǽr eigi presti. þa scal
scira huerr sem hia verðr staddr. iafn vel faðir eða moðir ef eigi ero aðrir menn til.”
25 Charles Donahue, Jr., Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments about
Marriage in Five Courts (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 2007), 20.