The North Icelandic Benedictine School (''Norðlenski Benediktskólinn'') is a fourteenth-century Icelandic literary movement, the lives, activities, and relationships of whose members are attested particularly by '' Laurentius saga biskups''. This movement is characterised by an elaborate (or 'florid') rhetorical style new to Icelandic saga-writing at the time (known in English as the 'florid style', Scandinavian as the ''florissante stil'', and Icelandic as the ''skrúðstíll''), with Latinate grammar, Latin and Low German loan-words; and, unusually for Icelandic sagas, which are usually anonymous, a close-knit network of identifiable authors (sometimes self-identified, sometimes named by others). The school is associated particularly with the Northern Icelandic Benedictine monasteries of

Þingeyri Þingeyri (, regionally also ) is a settlement in the municipality of Ísafjarðarbær, Iceland. It is located on the coast of Dýrafjörður fjord in the mountainous peninsula Westfjords (in Icelandic written Vestfirðir). On 1 January 2019, it ...

and Munkaþverá in the diocese of

Hólar Hólar (; also Hólar í Hjaltadal ) is a small community in the Skagafjörður district of northern Iceland. Location Hólar is in the Hjaltadalur valley, some from the national capital of Reykjavík. It has a population of around 100. It is th ...

, and with the students of

Jón Halldórsson Jón Halldórsson (c. 1275 – 2 February 1339, or Candlemas; Modern Icelandic: ) was a Roman Catholic clergyman, who became the bishop of Iceland (1322–1339). He served in the diocese of Skálholt. He grew up in Norway as a friar of the Dom ...

and

Lárentíus Kálfsson Lárentíus Kálfsson (medieval Icelandic Laurentius Kálfsson; 10 August 1267 – 16 April 1331) was bishop of the northern Icelandic diocese of Hólar 1324–31. Laurentius studied first with Þórarinn kaggi, his maternal uncle, in Vellir in ...

. The principal authors and works associated with this literary movement are: *

Árni Lárentíusson Árni Lárentíusson (or Laurentiusson) is one of the few medieval Icelandic prose writers known by name, known to have translated '' Dunstanus saga''. Árni was born in 1304, the son of Lárentíus Kálfsson and his Norwegian concubine Þuríðr ...

, author of '' Dunstanus saga'' (translated from the Latin life of the Anglo-Saxon Saint

Dunstan Saint Dunstan (c. 909 – 19 May 988) was an English bishop. He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised as a saint. His work restor ...

). *

Arngrímr Brandsson Arngrímr Brandsson (died 13 October 1361) was an Icelandic cleric and writer. Arngrímr‘s early life and career has long been the subject of debate; the evidence for it is sometimes contradictory. The synthesis of the evidence by Jón Helgason ...

, author of '' Guðmundar saga D'', and possibly the translator of '' Thomas saga erkibyskups'' (the life of

Thomas Becket Thomas Becket (), also known as Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London and later Thomas à Becket (21 December 1119 or 1120 – 29 December 1170), was an English nobleman who served as Lord Chancellor from 1155 to 1162, and then ...

). *

Bergr Sokkason Bergr Sokkason was an Icelandic monk, abbot and scholar, who flourished in the earlier fourteenth century. In 1316 he became a monk of the monastery of Þingeyri before moving to the monastery of Munkaþverá, where he became prior in 1322 and abb ...

, author of '' Nikulás saga erkibiskups'' (a translation of the life of St Nicholas) and '' Mikaels saga höfuðengils'' (the life of the Archangel Michael); and possibly the L-version of '' Jóns saga helga'', '' Guðmundar saga C'', and '' Jóns þáttr Halldórssonar''. He or his associates may also have composed a substantial number of other sagas, such as '' Kirjalax saga'', '' Rémundar saga keisarasonar'', and ''

Dínus saga drambláta ''Dínus saga drambláta'' (also known, ''inter alia'', as ''Saga af Dínus ok Philomena'') is an Old Norse chivalric saga, assumed to have been composed first in the fourteenth century. The saga is noted for its scholarly, highbrow style. Summa ...

''. * Einarr Hafliðason, translator of the miracle-story ''Atburð á Finnmörk'' and probably author of '' Laurentius saga'' and the '' Lögmannsannáll''. *

Einarr Gilsson Einarr Gilsson was an Icelandic poet and official. He was the lögmaður of northern and western Iceland from 1367 to 1369. He is mentioned already in letters dating from 1339 and 1340 but his years of birth and death are unknown. He appears to ha ...

. Among the various manuscripts which can be associated with the movement, the mid-fourteenth-century AM 657 a-b 4to is a good example: it is the oldest manuscript to contain the text of Bergr's '' Jóns þáttr Halldórssonar''; it also contains Marian miracles, Bergr's '' Mikaels saga''; Jón Halldórsson's '' Drauma-Jóns saga''; ''Hákonar þáttr Hárekssonar''; Jón Halldórsson's '' Clári saga'', as well as several ''exempla''.http://handrit.is/is/manuscript/view/da/AM04-0657-a-b.

Notes

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References

* Sigurdson, Erika Ruth, 'The Church in Fourteenth-Century Iceland: Ecclesiastical Administration, Literacy, and the Formation of an Elite Clerical Identity' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2011), pp. 54–56 http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2610

Icelandic literature