Studia Islandica - 01.06.1960, Blaðsíða 34

32
is referred to as Jómsborg in Icelandic sources. From
this we might assume that members of the Greek Ortho-
dox Church stayed for long periods of time on the Bal-
tic coast. But the Warings must also have come under
Eastern influence during their stay in Constantinople.
Up to now, only one small ivory tablet made in Con-
stantinople in the lOth or llth century has been con-
nected with Iceland, bearing the image of the Virgin
Mary and an Icelandic runic inscription dating from the
12th century. In itself, this tablet gives little evidence
of Greek Orthodox influence in Iceland, since so many
questions remain unanswered in its connection.8
But only recently Selma Jónsdóttir has demonstrated
that the carved panels from Bjarnastaðahlíð were pat-
terned on a Byzantine Doomsday image. She has sug-
gested the possibility that their model was brought to
Iceland by the “Armenian” bishops. Further, she points
out that they might have come from Ermland on the
Baltic. But, as she assumes that the model of the panels
came to Iceland more or less directly from Southem
Italy, she thinks the three bishops were in fact Basilian
monks, and therefore followers of the Greek Orthodox
Church. But, in Southern Italy, Basilian monks were
closely associated with the famous Benedictine Abbey
of Monte Cassino. She proves the image on the Bjarna-
staðahlíð panels to be closely related to a picture in the
church of S. Angelo in Formis near Capua in Southern
Italy, a church which was built at the instance of Abbot
Desiderius of the Abbey of Monte Cassino. He employed
Byzantine artists for the decoration of the Abbey, but
its influence is felt in the above church. According to
the above theory, the three Basilian monks went all the
way to Iceland, impelled partly by missionary enthusiasm
and partly by the dissolution and discontent which be-
came prevalent in the Basilian monasteries in Southern
Italy in the second half on the llth century.