Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1957, Page 99
CHAPTER II
79
Icelandic public—and in this a great role was played by AJ’s
Works. All Icelanders who could read Latin were acquainted with
his Latin books, not least Crymogæa1, and there is no doubt that
it must have been in the nature of a revelation for them to dis-
cover that it was possible to write Icelandic history in this way,
presenting it to an international public on a level with the cele-
brated histories of other nations. After Crymogæa’s publication,
Icelanders who knew the work must have seen Icelandic studies
in a completely new light—a new value was set on them, they
were to be measured by new standards. Icelanders had now been
given their national history, where the old chieftains and their
exploits were ranked with the heroes of other lands. And the
whole was given a place within the historical system of interna-
tional humanism. Despite their economic and political decline,
Icelanders had, no less than other nations, a glorious past which
could be turned to when pinching circumstances and hard years
afflicted the people. A romantic cultivation of the past had, it is
true, older roots in Iceland, but it reasserts itself strongly in the
course of the seventeenth century and is then plainly linked to
the humanist doctrines which were first and foremost dissemi-
nated by AJ’s works.
We find that several of Worm’s Icelandic correspondents ex-
press in clear terms their admiration for AJ’s achievement2.
Some of these men were themselves actively interested in Ice-
landic studies and they could regard themselves directly or in-
directly as AJ’s disciples. A number of them encouraged or
supported others in undertaking scholarly or antiquarian work of
different kinds. In this connection, it is enough to name such men
as Magnus Olafsson in Laufås and the two bishops, Lorlåkur
Skulason and Brynjolfur Sveinsson. Bishop Lorlåkur has it to
his credit, amongst other things, that he patronised and encour-
aged the self-educated farmer Bjorn Jonsson of SkarSså in the
production of his many and important works. In his chief work,
SkarSsårannåll, there are also some traces of the use of Crymo-
1 Cf. also the signs, mentioned in note 4, p. 76 and note 1, p. 80, which show
that readers unfamiliar with Latin also made use of this work.
2 See e.g. Bibi. Arnam. VII, 118, 179, 188, 321.