Gripla - 2023, Side 146
144 GRIPLA
is whether Björn, unlike Jón Gissurarson, simply judged the episode un-
worthy of copying. As Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir points out, Björn Jónsson
adopted a broadly utilitarian approach towards his copying activity. Thus,
when copying B4 Björn omitted passages of a religious or theological na-
ture that he considered superfluous to his interests, which centred on legal
history. *B was copied for Bishop Þorlákur Skúlason of Skálholt (1628–
1656) in a version which ostensibly included the whole of Árna saga biskups.
Nevertheless, chapter 147 may still have appeared to Björn as an episode
undeserving of inclusion. After all, to him this account of a miracle in the
Faroes and the personal fate of one prelate may have seemed irrelevant to
the major themes of Iceland’s history.
ii
To properly interpret this concluding chapter, it is crucial to have knowl-
edge about the background of its main protagonist, Prófastr Þorvaldr
Helgason. Þorvaldur first appears in Árna saga in 1285, at a time of in-
creasing tension between Bishop Árni Þorláksson and Hrafn Oddsson,
the king’s most prominent representative in Iceland, regarding staðir. 14
As a part of his strategy in the dispute, Hrafn sought to undermine the
authority of the provosts. As a recently created office at the time, the
provost represented the bishop’s authority within larger districts. He held
a supervisory role over parishes and wielded important financial responsi-
bilities. Most importantly, the office holder collected the St Peter’s Pence
(Rómarskattur) and the bishop’s quarter of the tithe.15
In 1285 Árni made Þorvaldr provost in the Western-fjords, with the
wealthy staðr of Holt in Önundarfjörður as his main residence. This act
angered Hrafn who, it appears, had only recently dispossessed Þorvaldr of
both his authority and the farm. Hrafn accused the bishop of reneging on a
previous agreement. In his letter to the bishop, Hrafn claimed that as long
as he was the king’s man in the Western-fjords, ‘Þorvaldr will not hold the
the office of sýslumaðr in the country’s northern and western quarters uninterrupted from
1270 to his death in 1289. See Axel Kristinsson, ‘Embættismenn konungs fyrir 1400’, Saga
36 (1998): 113–117.
14 Ibid., p. 145.
15 Erika Sigurdson, The Church in Fourteenth-Century Iceland: The Formation of an Elite
Clerical Identity (Brill: Leiden, 2016), 72–75.