Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1981, Blaðsíða 189

A note on Lilja
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discoveries in a library of classics. Third, there is Eysteinn’s famous
rejection, in theory and almost entirely in praotice, of the kennings
and heiti of traditional scaldic verse. This is in keeping with
Geoffrey’s injunctions. After discussing the tropes, the stylistic ele-
menits pertaining to »difficult ornament« which may be said to
resemble scaldic usages most closely, he adds in a passage that
appears essentially his own,27) i. a.
1074 Si qua feras igitur peregrina vel abdita verba,
Quid possis ex hoc ostendis jusque loquendi
Non attendis. Ab hac macula se retrahat error
1077 Oris et obscuris oppone repagula verbis.
Utere consilio; licet omnia noveris, unus
Major in hoc aliis: in verbis sis tamen unus
1080 Ex aliis; nec sis elati, sed socialis
Eloquii. Veterum clamat doctrina: loquaris
Ut plures, sapias ut pauci.
Fourth, we may recall established rhetorical influence on Norse
poetic composition, evident already in the twelfth-century Hátta-
lykill;28) Icelandic interest in analysis of scaldic style with the aid
of Latin classifications, in the Málskrúðsfræði by Óláfr hvítaskáld,
for example, and in the Fourth Grammatical Treatise by a con-
temporary of Eysteinn’s;29) Norwegian familiarity with the precepts
of artes dictandi, well documented in vernacular sources of the four-
teenth century, and, to go further afield, but not much, assured
evidence of the use of Geoffrey’s Poetria by Magister Matthias of
Linkoping about 13 2 0.30) Studies in grammar, rhetoric and dic-
tamen overlapped and intertwined. Bjarne Berulfsen plausibly sug-
gested that Eysteinn might have been close to the circle of high-
ranking clerics who effectively made one class in Norway and Ice-
land in the first half of the fourteenth century, men whose learning
and literacy were of international scope and standard.31) We need
only remind ourselves of the names of Árni Sigurðsson (•j'1314),
Auðfinnr Sigurðsson (fl320) and Hákon Erlingsson (11342), bishops
of Bergen, Árni Helgason (fl320) and Jón Halldórsson (J1339),
bishops of Skálholt, Laurentius Kálfsson (J1331), bishop of Hólar,