Editiones Arnamagnæanæ. Series A - 01.06.2003, Page 91
THE S RECENSION
53*
but a close connection with Skálholt was assured by the appointment
of Sigmundr Einarsson, priest, as prior of the new house: he had been
officialis of the Skálholt diocese in the 1341-43 interim and only now
took monastic vows (IslAnn., 209, 210, 351, 352, s.a. 1341, 1344). As
a Benedictine congregation Viðey did not last long. Bishop Jón’s suc-
cessor was a Norwegian, Gyrðr Ivarsson, abbot of the Augustinian
house of St John the Baptist in Bergen when elected to Skálholt (DN
XVII B:l, 265). We find, not surprisingly, that once he was settled in
the see Viðey returned to its Augustinian observance (IslAnn., 214,
s.a. 1351; cf. 355, s.a. 1352; on the 1344-52 period see Ámi Óla,
Viðeyjarklaustur, 64-66).
It may be noticed in passing that the new Viðey community would
have made an appropriate destination for the lectionary represented by
AM 234 fol., whether this was entirely derived from AM 221 fol. or
not; or the possibility might be considered that the 221 collection was
a Viðey book, now renewed in handsome fashion. It happens that of
the saints featured in the codex the Blessed Virgin, St Paul and St Au-
gustine are among the several to whom the Viðey church was dedica-
ted (Cormack, 230), and the St Thomas among those to whom the
south altar in the church was dedicated (Cormack, 155) is much more
likely to have been Becket than Didymus. The life of St Anthony and
the associated Vitae patrum made proper monastic reading. A life of
Jón Ögmundarson, Iceland’s second native saint, might be at home
anywhere, but if Bishop Jón Sigurðarson had belonged to Þingeyrar
(the only other choice is Þverá, also in the Hólar diocese), and possi-
bly had monks from there to help establish the new house on Viðey
(cf. Guðbrandur Jónsson, Saga 1949-53, 424), he and they could be
credited with special regard for Jón helgi as patron saint of their dio-
cese and the putative founder and acknowledged benefactor of their
northem monastery.
The smallpox epidemic, the death of Bishop Jón Sigurðarson, the
three-year interregnum thereafter, the arrival of a new diocesan, a
Norwegian Augustinian who apparently had small sympathy for the
aims of his predecessor, an Icelandic Benedictine: these are circum-
stances that could account for the unfinished state of AM 234 fol.