the conversion of Iceland

Question 1

Points to consider within the conversion of Iceland

Answer 1

• The early christian settlers and why did they go extinct- wha does this say about the difficulties of converting scandinavia?
• Ari’s account of the conversion
• The role of chieftains and how they were able to take advantage of the conversion
• Early icelandic bishops
• Reasons for the conversion of iceland
• How did the conversion differ from other countries

Question 2

Economic reasons for conversion

Answer 2

• Icelanders needed to maintain to maintain friendly and peaceful relations with Norway as they were dependent on them for timber, iron and transport. So, because of this dependence, it is possible that they felt they could not stay pagan when Norway became officially Christian under the rule of Olaf Tryggvason

Question 3

Key difference between the icelandic church and others

Answer 3

• ‘The Icelandic church began by being subordinate to the temporal powers and not an independent state within a state, as in other countries’.
• AND in other places, religous change was spearheaded by kings

Question 4

What does Foot argue reagarding clerics?

Answer 4

Argues that soon after the conversion, a formation of a ‘clerical gentry’ began, fostered by a sense of ‘upper class’ in both the secular and clerical worlds.

Question 5

Source for the early christian settlers

Answer 5

Landnamabok

Question 6

What does landnamabok say on the early christian settlers

Answer 6

According to well informed people some of the settlers of Iceland were baptised, mostly those who came from the British Isles… and a number of others who came from the west. Some kept up their faith until they died, but in most families this didn’t last, for the sons of some built temples and made sacrifices, and Iceland was completely pagan for about 120 years”.

Question 7

When was a national tithe system set up in iceland?

Answer 7

1097

Question 8

Why could Icelanders not chose to convert (like the svear)?

Answer 8

Iceland had no monarch, no army and no royal court; their cohesion came from common law.

Question 9

Summary of Christinity in the orkneys

Answer 9

• c. 850 -Settlement of orkney begins
  c. 850 c. 950- Many norse pagan graves on Orkney dated to this period
  before 975- Remains of a chapel at Deerness on the Orkneys
• Olaf Tryggvason said to have forced them to convert- but already a chapel there

Question 10

Summary of christianty on the faroes

Answer 10

c, 800- Settlement of the faroes
c. 900- Christianity likely begins to arrive
c, 1050- first ‘missionary’ bishop arrives in the faroes
c. 1100- a fixed diocese is established in the faroes

Question 11

Happened in 1056?

Answer 11

• Islief becomes bishop until 1080

Question 12

Who was Islief?

Answer 12

• The first native bishop of Iceland from 1056- 1080
• He was from the Haukadælir family who were powerful in southwestern Iceland
• Succeeded by his son Gizur– the father and son office shows elite control

Question 13

challenges to conversion in iceland

Answer 13

• See a publically sanctified period of syncretism
• Initial changes likely in behaviour rather than belief
• Christianity requires a lot of infrastructure which takes time to establish, and it would have taken ears for there to be enough priests for the entire country, and so in the intermediary period there is a blended form of religion.

Question 14

Who was Gizur the white?

Answer 14

• 2nd native bishop of Iceland 1082- 1118
• He made his farm at Skaholt into a permenent bishop’s seat
• – Ari says that “Bishop Gizzur also had it laid down as law that the episcopal see in Iceland should be at Skáholt, whereas before it had no fixed location”.

Question 15

Who controlled the election of bishops for a long time?

Answer 15

The Haukadælir family and their allies the Oddavejar—- these two families dominated secular and ecclesiastic politics in Iceland

Question 16

Ways in which chieftains used christianity for their own power?

Answer 16

• They did not want to lose the power they held in the old system so they adapted
• • Built churches on their farms
• • Some got a christian education and became priests
• • founded their own schools
• • sent their sons abroad

Question 17

Written sources for the conversion of Iceland and later legal implications

Answer 17

• Islendingabok
• Kristni Saga
• Landnamabok
• Saga of Olaf Tryggvason
• Gragas
• Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb

Question 18

Landnámabók tells us that some initial settlers were Christian- why was it not maintained?

Answer 18

The greater advantage was to join the law of the island in order to join the community; they probably had to join the religion and the law (which are often the same thing). Another reason is that Christian infrastructure is public; you need christening, baptising, confession, churches and priests and books and wine. The whole physical infrastructure of Christianity was not to be found in Iceland.

Question 19

Who were the bishops that maintained Christianity in Iceland before Islief?

Answer 19

In the In the first part of Christianity in Iceland all the bishops seem to be English and sent by the king of Norway, started by Haraldsson?
- Indeed, Magnus the Good continues his father’s policy of sending Insular bishops to Iceland.

Question 20

Summary of Ari’s account of the acceptance of Christianity in Islendingabok

Answer 20

• Says that Tryggvason bought Christianity to Norway and to Iceland, by sending a priest named Thrangbrand here.
• He baptised some but goes back to Olaf and tells him Iceland would never be accepted
• Gizur and Hjalti spoke at the law rock announcing their mission after promising Olaf they could get the icelanders to convert, and thorgeirr spoke saying they all needed to have the same laws
• It was then proclaimed in the laws that all people should be Christian, and that those in this country who had not yet been baptised should receive baptism; but the old laws should stand as regards the exposure of children and the eating of horse-flesh. People had a right to sacrifice in secret if they wished, but it would be punishable by the lesser outlawry if witnesses were produced. And a few years later, these heathen provisions were abolished, like the others

Question 21

‘pagan’ things allowed after the announcement at the Althing in 1000

Answer 21

• old laws stood regarding the exposure of children
• eating of horse flesh
• sacrificing in secret, but punishable by outlawry if found out
• • a few years later these provisions were abolished

Question 22

A bishop before 1000?

Answer 22

• Frederik.

Islendingabok says he came here ‘during the heathen period’

Question 23

Name and explain some of the bishops in iceland 1000- 1056 listed in Islendingabok

Answer 23

• bjarnharthr the Book- Learned- one of the English bishops in St Olaf’s entcourage. Later made bishop of Skåne by Cnut
• Kolr- Also from Olaf’s entourage
• Hrotholfr (Rothulf)- English and possibly Norman. English sources say he returned to England in 1050 and was appointed Abbot of Abingon.
• Johan the Irishman
• Bjarnharthr- Possibly the bishop mentioned by Adam of Bremen who Archbishop Adalbert sent to Norway

Question 24

What does Ari say about the method they adopted Christianity?

Answer 24

The Icelanders chose a typically Icelandic method of solving dispute, i.e. they call in an arbitrator. Says that the conversion is for the basis of law. Law is the basis for the decision and a compromise is the solution.

Question 25

How were Icelandic thithes different?

Answer 25

they tithed property rather than produce

– no known equivilent for this

Question 26

What was the second bishop’s see established after Skaholt?

Answer 26

Holar, created c. 1105

Question 27

Aim of introducing tithes?

Answer 27

Tithes were probably initially more for the men who owned the church as a form of easy revenue, rather than directly for the bishops. Although Icelandic bishops seem at least to have always got at least a share of their tithe.

Question 28

In later developmental stages- how were parishes in Iceland created?

Answer 28

• In Iceland parishes were created around existing churches

Question 29

What does Adam of Bremen say about Iceland?

Answer 29

Adam of B. claims that Iceland was converted in the time of Archbishop Adalbert (1043-72), crucially consecrating Islief. “This link between H.B. and Iceland is a little surprising. Ari says nothing about Islief’s consecration”

Question 30

What happened in 1053?

Answer 30

Pope Leo IX explicitly defined H.B.’s province as encompassing not only the Svear and the Danes, who had been named before, but also ‘Norway, Iceland, Greenland and all the northern nations’.”

Question 31

Discuss the fact that Icelandic laws say a layman could baptise in case of need

Answer 31

• In Iceland there were no towns at all, just groups of farmhouses. So in some sense, in terms of education, it places a responsibility on everyone in the community, and the community generally, to know how to baptize, as there was a real possibility that they’d have to do it themselves. The punishment seems disproportionate, as nowhere else in Scandinavia were people totally encouraged to know baptism.

Question 32

What do the Icelandic laws say on the observance of sundays and what does this tell us?

Answer 32

• We get the impression that this was a society in which people were travelling around a lot, and that many of these journeys were long, and so you couldn’t just stop travelling on Sundays.
• Takes into the environmental factor in Iceland- so issues to do with the time of day and when you knew if you were working too late on a Saturday or Sunday.
• Possibly the first time that the Icelander’s needed to know what time of day it was, and they came up with some quite intricate ways of doing this.

Question 33

What does Theodoricus Monarchus say?

Answer 33

Theodoricus Monachus implies that divine intervention is the reason for conversion, as opposed to Icelandic law

Question 34

Site of Helgafel

Answer 34

From Landnámabók: “There was a mountain on that headland called Helgafell “and no one was allowed even to look at it unless he’d washed himself first. So holy was the mountain, no living creature there, man or beast, could be harmed until they left of their own accord. Thorolof and his kinsmen all believed that they would go into the mountain when they died.”

Question 35

Similar to Hagland, what does Cormack argue?

Answer 35

• • Armenian priests
• • Argues that contemporary events in Armenia meant that Armenians were forced to travel far from home, and notes that there is evidence for them in Bavaria
• • ultimately though, both scholars still only provide textual evidence

Question 36

What does Herman argue regarding Islendingabok?

Answer 36

Through a study of how Islendingabok uses time and space, Herman argues that the fact Ari continually references the wider Christian world could be read as a general sense of insecurity within the Icelandic church, needing to constantly remind itself of it’s wider mission and backing.

Question 37

Discuss burial practice in Iceland

Answer 37

There is little evidence of ‘pagan’ burial practices continuing past c. 1000
- this suggests that in Iceland, burial practice was one of the key elements of conversion

Question 38

What does Vesteinsson argue regarding collective Icelandic identity?

Answer 38

• Argues that the Norse material culture flourished amongst the settlers due to a need to forge a collective identity, but that Christianity was better for this and filled a gap

Question 39

Alongside bishops of Skaholt, another bishop who held both secular and religous power

Answer 39

Bishop Jon Ögmundarson

He was bishop of Hollar and a chieftain

Question 40

What does Vesteinsson believe the motivations of the conversion are?

Answer 40

• Argues that Iceland’s sudden conversion was due to the political motivations of several chieftains, saying that it happened “without much help from the outside” (which i would dispute– why do the two have to be mutually exclusive?)
• Highlights that beforehand, there were no mechanisms to wield power beyond the ownership of land

Question 41

Example of a church before 1000

Answer 41

• Kristni Saga says that Þorvatðr Spak-Boðvarsson had a church built on his farm in Ass, “sixteen years before Christianity was made law in Iceland”.

Question 42

How do accounts compare?

Answer 42

• heimsrkingla and ari tell pretty much the same story

Question 43

Important to remember when considering Ari/ Islendingabok as a source

Answer 43

• He was related to some of the figures of the conversion
• Ultimately he was a priest and his work was commissioned under two bishops Þorlákr and Ketill
• Also likely knowledge of Christianity reached Iceland from the British Isles, which Ari doesn’t mention

Question 44

How do scholars generally percieve Ari as a source?

Answer 44

• Generally reliable
• Aðalsteinsson says he had “both the skill and the ability to impart true information”
• But remember he has his sources/ biases

Question 45

Scholars for the conversion of iceland

Answer 45

• Aðalsteinsson
• Cormack
• Foot
• Herman
• Jochens
• Vesteinsson

Question 46

Who was Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb

Answer 46

• A Jewish merchent who travelled through northern Europe c. 965 after the Kzhar empire was destroyed by the Rus of Kiev
• Gives an account of Schleswig

Question 47

Another source to link to Iceland/ exposure of children and points on the exposure of children generally

Answer 47

Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb

• The issue of children didn’t change with Christianity, but the difference was that under Christianity is that you could take the unwanted children to a church or a monastery or a nunnery.
• -So the church responds to this basic problem in a different way, but the issue was still there and was evidently a very important issue.

Question 48

What does Ibrāhīm ibn Ya’qūb say about Schleswig

Answer 48

The thing that strikes him most was their animal sacrifices and how they threw their surplus children into the sea to save the cost of raising them.

Question 49

Topics to think of and include on Icelandic conversion narratives

Answer 49

1) The notion of the ‘noble heathen’ ancestor
2) How Ari’s typological account affects our understanding/ use of typological history generally
3) The idea of voluntary conversion