Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana - 01.06.1980, Side 19
Introduction
In the year 999 the Icelandic Althing, the world’s oldest Parliament,
accepted Christianity by common consent. The ground had been prepared
by missionaries from various countries, and by settlers who had previously
lived in the British Isles. In addition, during his short but eventful reign
the Norwegian king Olav Tryggvason (995-1000) wielded a formidable
power of persuasion, not only in his own kingdom of Norway, but also
in the North-Atlantic archipelago.
The organized Icelandic Church came into being with the establish-
ment of the bishopric of Skålholt in 1056; this bishopric comprised the
whole country till 1106, when the northern bishopric of Holar was
established. Up to 1103, the Icelandic Church was a suffragan of the
metropolitan See of Bremen-Hamburg; from 1103 to 1153 suffragan of
Lund in medieval Denmark, and from 1153 to the Reformation
suffragan of Nidaros in Norway.1
Lay ownership of the churches is the salient feature of the Icelandic
free-state when compared to the Scandinavian kingdoms. A chieftain
or a great land-owner would build a church on his estate and endow it
sufficiently for the up-keep of one or more priests. The church’s
existence was secured by a charter (måldagi). The oldest Icelandic
law-book, Grågås, from about 1120, ruled that the charter of a newly-
founded church should be read at the Althing or at the local Thing, as
well as, once a year, in the church itself, on a day of great popular
gathering-together. The charter was deposited in the church and, time
1 For the series episcoporum, see O. Kolsrud, Den norske Kirkes erkebiskoper og
biskoper indtil Reformationen: DN 17 B (Christiania 1913). The main Icelandic
sources, conceming early Christian times in Iceland have all been printed in: Byskupa
spgur, 1-2, ed. Jon Helgason (1938-78).
Liturgica Islandica - 1