The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar

Abstract

In 1997, the so-called Icelandic family sagas and tales (Íslendingasögur and þættir), pseudo-historical narratives that treat the lives and feuds of prominent Icelanders and Icelandic families during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, were newly translated into English in The Complete Sagas of Icelanders, Including 49 Tales (ed. Viðar Hreinsson, Leifur Eiríksson Publishers, 1997). The five volumes in this work effectively replaced the antiquated translations from earlier centuries with highly readable texts that capture the characteristic prose of these important narratives. These translations have made the sagas accessible to a broader audience and have played a critical role within both medieval scholarship and scholarship on hagiography, as well as in the English-speaking classrooms where these works are taught.Other saga genres have not received the same comprehensive treatment in terms of translation to English; these include both the heilagra manna sögur (sagas of saints), Old Norse-Icelandic translations of Latin and German saints’ legends, and the biskupa sögur (bishops’ sagas), the natively produced hagiographies that treat the lives of Iceland's holy bishops. Some important English translations have appeared in recent years, making these works available to non-specialists and students alike; these are helpfully listed in the individual entries for various saints in Kirsten Wolf's The Legends of the Saints in Old Norse-Icelandic Prose (University of Toronto Press, 2013). However, as Wolf's bibliography also shows, many works belonging to the genres of biskupa sögur and heilagra manna sögur remain untranslated to English, or at least have not been translated in recent decades. This makes the work under review a welcome contribution to the growing number of translations of bishops’ and saints’ sagas.A draft of The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar was originally completed in 2000, but Cormack thought it advisable to delay publication of the translation until the publication of Peter Foote's (d. 2009) two editions of Jóns saga Hólabiskups, both of which appeared in 2003. The first was a diplomatic edition and study as part of the Editiones Arnamagnæana series, and the second was a normalized edition in the Íslenzk fornrit series. While the former work was published in English and provided a detailed discussion of the manuscripts and redactions of the saga, the latter work was published in Icelandic, and examined more closely the saga itself, and in particular, its manuscripts, sources, style, and connections to other literary works. Foote originally wrote the latter introduction in English, but the text was never finalized due to his poor health. Cormack was therefore given permission by Foote, the editors of the Íslenzk fornrit edition, and Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag to publish the English version of the text, which comprises Part II of the present work. Cormack points out that Foote's introduction, while “essential to scholars of language and literature . . . provides more detail than the average reader is likely to require” (p. ix), and as such, she provides a general introduction that takes into consideration the main points of Foote's introduction, but is meant to be more accessible; this forms the beginning of Part I, and prefaces the translation of the text.In her introduction, Cormack provides an overview of the history of Christianity and the Church in medieval Iceland, which serves to contextualize the life and cult of Bishop Jón Ögmundarsson (1052–1121) and the sagas written following his canonization. As Cormack outlines, Jón Ögmundarson was the first bishop of the northern diocese of Hólar, which was established in 1106, and was a key figure in the early years of the Church in Iceland. She then turns to the broader context of Bishop Jón's life and career and provides an excellent general overview of the introduction and development of Christianity and the cult of the saints in medieval Iceland. Indeed, this is a reading that will be extremely useful to teachers of Old Norse-Icelandic literature, as it is both accessible and highly readable, but also provides all of the information necessary for understanding the religious and historical context for the saga of Jón Ögmundarson in its various redactions. Jón's translatio and his cultus are then discussed, and Cormack considers reasons for which he never achieved the level of popularity as Þorlákr Þórhallsson (1133–1193), Iceland's patron saint. She speculates that “perhaps too much time had elapsed since [Jón's] death, or perhaps too little had passed since the sanctification of Þorlákr” and also notes that the fact that Jón had been married was also a factor (p. 9).Part I also includes an introduction to the versions of Jóns saga Hólabiskups, which is essentially a summary of Foote's findings. While, as Cormack notes, the original Latin vita of Jón is lost, there are three redactions of the saga in Old Norse-Icelandic. These are the Skálholt redaction (S), the oldest version of the text, which dates from the first half of the thirteenth century; the Latinate redaction (L), named for the Latinate style in which it was written (also called “florid” style), which was written c. 1320; and the Hólar redaction (H), which was likely written c. 1500 and only survives in manuscripts from the seventeenth century. Cormack discusses the ways in which the three versions overlap and the ways in which they differ, considering important episodes relating to women, specifically the anchoress Hildr and Ingunn, who taught and did needlework at Hólar cathedral. Other literary, hagiographic, and folkloric themes in the text are then considered, ranging from Jón's background and appearance to vows and miracles attributed to him to the historicity of the saga itself.Following Part I is the translation of the text itself, which is based on the H version of the saga. Since the H version is incomplete, material from the S and L versions of the saga have been inserted and included as appendices, respectively. The translation is highly readable and represents the original Old Norse-Icelandic text beautifully, and Cormack prefaces her translation with notes explaining her use of various features of the original language (including alternation of verb tenses) and specialized vocabulary (in particular, terms for clergy, prayer, and worship). Over 100 footnotes accompany the text and offer explanatory notes and textual references. Following the translation of the saga itself are excerpts from the L version, which are included as appendices; these comprise Gísls þáttr, Sæmundar þáttr, a text on Jón's school at Hólar, and a miracle regarding food multiplication. A fifth and final appendix is a deposition about Þingeyrar monastery, and is followed by Part II and the second introduction by Foote, which delves into the manuscript tradition of the saga and will be of great interest to scholars of paleography and philology.The Saga of St. Jón of Hólar is, in every way, excellent, and is an extremely valuable contribution to the growing number of studies on and translations of the biskupa sögur and heilagra manna sögur that have appeared in recent years. Both Cormack and Foote are to be applauded for their fine scholarship. I can only hope that studies and translations of this kind will continue to appear, making these important works more available and accessible to a wider audience.