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he had also found that the couple had not consummated the union, for in
the end, the bishop decided that their putative marriage was null and void.
Each party was free to marry whomever they wanted.62
the case of Þorgerðr and Þorleifr demonstrates two things. It shows
that Þorleifr and Böðvar thought and acted in old-fashioned patriarchal
ways; they had agreed to the marriage, and the father had then brow-beat-
en (or worse) Þorgerðr to agree. But the case also shows that the lawbooks
of Gratian and Árni had some influence in Iceland, since even Þorleifr had
felt obliged to ask Þorgerðr if she consented to marry him. Gratian’s em-
brace of the consent theory shaped how Icelanders lived their lives.63 The
bishop fully applied the law that he could find in both lawbooks. Bishop
Jón’s ruling made perfectly clear that he would excommunicate anyone
who did not respect his decision, although that might not have been very
effective, given that the saga literature of Iceland is full of people who took
excommunication very lightly.64
In conclusion, we have seen how Árni’s Christian Law of the 1270s ably
reflects general European canon law of his time. this is not surprising. By
this time, canon law was a highly sophisticated system of law with claims
of universal validity.65 It was easily accessible in well-organized books,
and we know that those books resided in the cathedral libraries of Iceland
(although the actual copies seem to have disappeared without a trace).
the relationship between the older Christian Law of Iceland and
European canon law, in contrast, is more difficult to pinpoint. one of the
problems is that it is difficult to say exactly what European canon law was
in the 1120s. the law had not yet been made systematic and universal, and
it did not yet reside in a small number of books with official validity, as it
did later when Árni was bishop. Canon law was found in a high number
of more or less well-organized collections, but little attempt was made
62 Cf. Agnes Arnórsdóttir, Property and Virginity, 167–168, whose conclusion (“the marriage
was not declared illegal”) about this case seems to contradict the bishop’s verdict (“Þui sundr
skilium wer oc sundr slitom oc sundr sægium þeirra hiona bandh”).
63 Agnes Arnórsdóttir, Property and Virginity, 168, makes the point that “knowledge of the
consent theory shaped the marriage litigation” in this case.
64 Elizabeth Walgenbach, “Excommunication and outlawry in the Legal World of thirteenth-
Century Iceland” (PhD diss., Yale university, 2016).
65 Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law, makes this point eloquently.
THE CANON LAW OF EMERGENCY BAPTISM