Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1957, Page 100

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INTRODUCTION
gæa1, even though Bjorn was certainly not able to read Latin
himself. But he often worked at Hålar, where he could easily
have obtained a translation. We know too that AJ was in direct
contact with Bjorn and received information from him2, and that
some of Bjorn’s works came into Worm’s hånds. Here we strike
near the heart of a matter of great significance. The growing
interest of foreign scholars in Icelandic studies was due, as we
have shown above, to AJ’s books, but in return this interest un-
doubtedly stimulated numerous Icelanders to cultivate antiqua-
rian studies. This is true not only of those who had some im-
mediate connection with Worm and other men of learning, but
also of others who only knew of the foreign scholars’ enthusiasm
at second hånd. It is always stimulating to know that one’s work
is followed with interest by famous men at home and abroad.
We can also mention a work written in 1647 by the syslu-
madur, Gisli Magnusson, which contained various proposals for
the improvement of Icelandic conditions3. Amongst his proposals
was the institution of a kind of Icelandic nobility—he belonged
himself to one of the most powerful families in the country—,
and amongst his arguments in favour of this he says that the
distinguished Icelandic families could trace their descent back
to those heroes, whose genealogies AJ had set forth in Crymo-
gæa4. Here we see an attempt to translate the theories of hum-
anism into practice, an attempt doomed to failure from the
start because the social preconditions for its accomplishment no
longer existed in Iceland under the Danish commercial monopoly.
The passage is not unimportant however, since both it and the
whole tone of Gisli Magnusson’s work show us how humanist
theories could be mingled with an Icelander’s otherwise mercan-
tilist ideas of progress.
1 See notes to II 19826-34, 20536-38, where the question is discussed of factual errors
in Crymogaea which are repeated in SkarSsårannåll; cf. also notes to II i9524-M,
19725-30. Cf. further the faet that Crymogæa was used in the annals in manuscript
AM 421 4to, see Storm, Islandske Annaler, 1888, LII-LVII.
2 See Bibi. Arnam. VII, pp. xvn, xxvm, 388-90, 524-5.
3 Edited with introduction and commentary in Safn FræSafélagsins X, 1939, to
which reference may be made.
4 See op. cit., p. 60.