Chapter 13

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Thorgilsson and he was a great-great-grandson of Ketil Flatneb; like Thorvald he was Iceland-born, but he had been baptized in Denmark and now came as a missionary from the court of Olaf Tryggvason. At once he began a crusade against heathendom in Iceland such as that pugnacious proselyte, his royal master, would have lovingly approved, for when he found that little heed was paid to his preaching he employed rougher methods to overthrow paganism, breaking the images of the gods and defacing and destroying the temples. This was more than the Icelanders, even those who might have listened sympathetically to the new doctrines, could endure, and at the meeting of the Althing in the year after Stefni's arrival a law was passed authorizing relatives of a Christian to take legal action against the blasphemer of the gods and thus rid their family of disgrace, a law sounding as though it heralded the beginning of a fierce and organized state resistance against the Christian faith, but in reality engineered against Stefni who was at once summoned by four of his kin. The result was that he was promptly outlawed and expelled.
       But Olaf Tryggvason, already encouraged by the conversion of a few Icelanders travelling in Norway, had by this time made up his mind that, even though he had no temporal authority over Iceland, he would at any rate ensure the spiritual salvation of those scions of the Norwegian stock who dwelt there; so, when Stefni returned having accomplished nothing, the king forthwith sent Thangbrand to preach Christianity in the far-away island. This new missionary was a truculent German robber who had once been in high favour with Olaf but was now in disgrace as a result of the frauds and piracy he had committed after being installed as priest on the island of Mostr in Norway; yet, like Stefni, he was a fearless and determined man such as the king loved and well suited for the enterprise, Olaf believing that force rather than gentleness was essential for the conversion of a reluctant and godless people. As punishment for his offences, therefore, Thangbrand went to Iceland.
       At first he did badly, but he soon made an important convert, Sidu-Hall, the chieftain of Thvotta, by whom he was most hospitably entertained, and after this he was successful in winning over a number of influential men, including wise old Njal of Bergthorshvoll, who had already foreseen the ultimate triumph of Christianity, so that the new faith began steadily to gain ground. But although Icelanders returning from Norway could vouch for the advantages of adopting the royal and official




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religion of the mother-country, there was still much of the old opposition to the Christian doctrines, and the violent and quarrelsome missionary was speedily involved in various unpleasant brawls that often ended in bloodshed. The result was that when the Althing assembled in 998, though the Christians in the state were by this time strong in numbers, Thangbrand was prosecuted by his enemies and only escaped with his life because Njal saved him from the relatives of the men he had slain. He remained in the country, nevertheless, for another year and then escaped to Norway in AD 999.
       Olaf was seriously angry at the apparent failure of his second missionary and in his wrath he ordered some heathen Icelanders whose boats had lately arrived at Nidaros to be seized and put to death; but it happened that at this time there were several other influential Icelanders, who were Christians, in Norway and these worthies prayed for the release of their countrymen, promising not only that these men should receive baptism but also that they themselves would see to it that Christianity was adopted as the official religion of their land. So in the year AD 1000 two of them, Gizur the White and his son-in-law Hjalti Skeggjason, returned home with the express intention of inviting the Althing to sanction a general change of faith. The meeting was about to assemble when they arrived and there was no time for diplomacy; the heathens in the state threatened resistance and it seemed as though there would be an ugly conflict between the two parties; but the Christians showed themselves plainly as ready to take up arms and at length it was agreed that a fair hearing should be given to the newly arrived spokesmen. On Sunday the 23rd of June a priest was allowed to celebrate mass and afterwards the Christians, with their clergy vested and with two crosses held aloft, moved in procession to lögberg, the law-mount, whence the sweet odour of their incense stole down upon the assembled folk of Iceland as Gizur and Hjalti began to explain their mission.
       It was a strange thing that Hjalti, who had been sentenced to banishment at the Althing of the previous year, should have been heard unchallenged, and, in truth, it seems that the more thoughtful of the heathen godar were at last beginning to realize the hopelessness of opposing the new religion. They knew that Christianity had already found favour in Norway, where it was now the state religion, and that the folk of the Celtic lands, and most of the Norsemen dwelling there, had long been Christian, while on the Continent Christianity, as




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they were aware, was the age-old and unchallenged faith of all men; to remain heathen, therefore, was to run the risk of a spiritual isolation that could not fail to be attended by the most serious political and economic disadvantages. For behind the mission of Gizur and Hjalti there was unmistakably the sanction of Olaf Tryggvason's might, and this for a country so dependent as was Iceland upon the goodwill of Norwegian traders was formidable indeed. Moreover, apart from the danger of a boycott by merchants from the now Christian lands of Norway and Britain, it was no longer possible to ignore the disturbing fact that already the new faith was threatening to break asunder the government in Iceland, for already no less than nine of the godar had received baptism and were thereby disqualified from fulfilling their duties at the things and courts where heathen oaths and customs were the rule; indeed, with the steady growth of the number of converts there had arisen a movement on the part of the Christians to set up a general thing of their own. No man doubted, then, the utmost gravity of the situation on this June Sunday in the year 1000, and there was good reason for the heathen party to grant to Olaf's two ambassadors, Icelanders like themselves, at least full freedom of speech.
       In the fierce and anxious debate that followed Sidu-Hall, the Christian, and Thorgeir, a heathen godi, were the spokesmen of the rival parties; but Thorgeir was one of those who realized the fundamental importance of safeguarding the constitution of Iceland from disruption by the establishment of an independent Christian thing, and all his counsel was directed to this end. His word it must have been that finally, on the 24th of June, persuaded the heathen folk that it was wisest to yield to Olaf's wishes at any rate in the letter, if not in the spirit, for the result of the long argument was an agreement that, though sounding as a noble triumph for Christianity, was in effect nothing but a compromise. The new faith was adopted as the official religion of Iceland, the heathens were one and all to be baptized, temples and images were to be destroyed, and open worship of the old gods was forbidden; but it was clear enough that there was neither clergy nor state machinery to enforce these changes and no rule was made forbidding the heathen to worship in private according to their ancient faith, while the continuance in secret of certain heathen practices, such as the exposing of children and the eating of horse-flesh, were expressly sanctioned. In becoming a Christian state, then, Iceland had avoided the chaos that was threatened by the secession of the Christian party from the Althing and had cemented her friendship with the




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mother-country of Norway. But that she had instantly and at one stroke changed the hearts of all her children no man believed.
       King Olaf Tryggvason died at the battle of Svold in this same year and the Icelanders were left alone with this artificial and imperfectly understood Christianity until such time as their continued heathen practices began to create scandal abroad. Then in 1016, the year that he came to the throne, King Olaf the Saint intervened, calling upon the lawspeaker of the Althing to introduce legislation against the offending heathen customs, and when the necessary laws had been passed Saint Olaf was so pleased that he sent to Iceland timber for the building of a church upon Thingvellir and a bell for this church; also he sent an English priest, Bishop Bernard Vilradsson, to tend this neglected community.
       The first bishop dwelt in Iceland for five years and was then succeeded by a Norwegian; the third bishop was an Englishman again, Rudolf, who, after nineteen years in Iceland, returned to England to become Abbot of Abingdon. But little is known of the work of these early prelates in the north and it is unlikely that they, foreigners labouring under most difficult conditions in a land where churches and priests were few, could do more than urge the formal observance of the Christian sacraments upon those pagans-at-heart who were now legally bound to live according to the Church's teaching. Only among the followings of a few of the chieftains with whom the bishops associated frequently did the new faith find its outward expression in a godly behaviour such as the continental Church would approve, and only there, if anywhere at all in Iceland, did the doctrines of Christianity comfort and enlighten the soul.
       But ecclesiastical administration was made easier by the appointment in 1056 of Isleif, son of Gizur the White, as bishop, for a native had advantages in the matters of language and authority that were denied to the foreign prelates. Isleif had been ordained in Germany and had then returned to Iceland where eventually he succeeded his father as godi of the little church of Skalholt; his learning and ability much impressed his countrymen and it was at their request that he went abroad to beg from the Emperor Henry III and from the Pope an appointment as bishop of Iceland. At Whitsuntide of 1056 he was consecrated to this office by Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen and in 1057 he went back to Iceland, there to take up his residence once more at Skalholt. One of         




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his first cares was to establish a school for the training of clergy chosen from among the Icelanders, and by so doing he laid the foundations of a national church in Iceland.
       He died in 1080, having been bishop for twenty-four years, and two years later he was succeeded by his son, Gizur, who is justly honoured as the greatest of the early churchmen of the island. In Gizur's day, for the first time, the Church in Iceland was administered as a single disciplined body; the chieftains who elected him were made to promise a full obedience to his ecclesiastical jurisdiction; Skalholt was permanently endowed as a seat for himself and his successors; a system of tithes was introduced, thus giving the Church a fixed revenue, and the better management of the great diocese was ensured by its division into two, Jon Ögmundsson, a pupil of his father's school, being installed as bishop of a new northern diocese of Holar. Gizur Isleifsson, therefore, is a noble figure in Icelandic history, one of those rare political princes of the Church whose temporal power was no less than their spiritual authority. There was peace in his time, a peace so secure that it was no longer necessary for men to walk armed, and Ari the Learned wrote of Gizur that he was more honoured by his countrymen than any other man known to have lived in Iceland.
       When, amid the universal sorrow of his people, the great bishop was laid to rest in the year 1118 the Icelandic Church was already a stable body, and it needed only the passage of a special code of ecclesiastical laws by the Althing in 1125 to confirm the authority of this Church as a national institution. But that the development of the ecclesiastical machinery outraced the spiritual education of the Icelandic congregations is certain, and it is improbable that, even in Gizur's day, Christianity had laid anything but the lightest hold upon the hearts of the common folk. That this was still so must perhaps be explained as chiefly the fault of the priests, for these were men always much more occupied with secular affairs, their estate-management and their trading, than with the cure of souls, and though among them were numbered such dignified and responsible persons as Ari Thorgilsson the Learned (1067- 1148) and Saemund Sigfusson the Wise (1056- 1133), the brawls and violences of others are sufficient to show how poor a thing must have been the spiritual leadership of some of the clergy, even if they were, as occasionally happened, chieftains with considerable temporal power. The establishment of a national Icelandic Church, in a word, is an event of the early saga-history of the