Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 163
161THE END OF Á R N A S A G A B I S K U P S
the latter feast to Iceland.76 The same bishop was surely also responsi-
ble for the codification of St Magnús’ feast. The third section (of five)
of AM 671 4to contains Jón Halldórsson’s Bannsakabréf (‘Letter of
Excommunication’) of 1326, which includes a statute for the feast days of
St Magnús and Corpus Christi. From the same year, there is a reference
to the church day of St Magnús (13 December), as recorded in the so-
called Árstíðaskrá Vestfirðinga (KBAdd 1). Stefan Drechsler has observed
that both references originate from the Western-fjords, which Bishop Jón
visited around the same time.77
In placing St Magnús’ Feast on a more official standing, Jón Halldórs-
son was probably codifying an existing practice within his diocese. A mál-
dagi of Sæból in the Western-Fjords dating to 1306/7 suggests as much.78
In it, Bishop Árni Helgason allows the celebration of St Magnús’ feast
day before Christmas (13 December) throughout the parish as with ‘the
Feast of St Andrew and St Nicholas’ (i.e. an obligatory feast) (‘þuilijkt sem
Andersmesso eda Nichulasmesso’).
Along with Sæból, Kolbeinsstaðir on the Snæfellsnes peninsula was
one of the five principal churches dedicated to the Orkney martyr. In a late
twelfth-century máldagi, the church is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.79 In
Vilkinsbók from 1397, however, Kolbeinsstaðir is dedicated to St Magnús,
St Peter, St Nicholas, the Virgin Mary, St Catherine of Antioch, St
Dominic and All the Saints.80 The máldagi records Ketill Þorláksson’s do-
nation of this farm and the adjoining church for his own and his wife’s sal-
vation. The máldagi also states that Ketill, who served as sýslumaður in the
Western Quarter from 1314 and as hirðstjóri from 1320 to ca. 1341, had the
church’s interior adorned. The inclusion of St Dominic (d. 1221) among the
church’s patron saints points to the influence of Bishop Jón Halldórsson,
Iceland’s first Dominican bishop. The refurbishment of Kolbeinsstaðir
76 Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir (ed.), 383.
77 Stefan Drechsler, ‘Jón Halldórsson and Law Manuscripts of Western Iceland, c. 1320–
1340’, in Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland, ed. by Gunnar Harðarson and Karl G.
Johansson (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 130–131.
78 Diplomatarium Islandicum – Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn II: 1253–1350 (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka
bókmenntafélag, 1893), 360–361.
79 Diplomatarium Islandicum – Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn I: 834–1284 (Copenhagen: Hið íslenzka
bókmenntafélag 1857), 274–275.
80 Diplomatarium Islandicum – Íslenzkt fornbréfasafn IV: 1265–1449 (Copenhagen: Hið ís-
lenzka bókmenntafélag 1897), 180–183.