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Papers by Haraldur Hreinsson

The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central and Northern Europe up to 1300, 2024

The volume presented here is the result of a collaborative effort. Initially, it was a collaborat... more The volume presented here is the result of a collaborative effort. Initially, it was a collaboration among a group of researchers who participated in the conference 'The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central Europe and Scandinavia until 1300', held at the University of War saw on 8 and 9 November 2021, and organized by the editors. This event provided an opportunity for researchers not only to present their own work but also to exchange ideas and engage in stimulating discussions. We are especially grateful to these researchers for their willingness to consider our perspectives and suggestions during the subsequent editorial stages, as we sought to ensure that the volume was coherent. However, none of this would have been possible without the preexisting collaboration between the editors and the institutions they rep resent: the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw and the De partment of Archaeology, Conservation, and History at the University of Oslo. This collaboration was established within the framework of the joint project titled 'Symbolic Resources and Political Structures on the Pe riphery: Legitimization of ELITES in Poland and Norway, c. 1000-1300', of which this volume is one of the outcomes. The ELITES project has received funding from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 (2019/34/H/HS3/00500). The Norway grants funded the Warsaw con ference and have also, together with the University of Warsaw, enabled this volume's open access publication. Moreover, while we invited numerous researchers to collaborate, the volume also includes chapters by members of the ELITES team, who present the results of research funded by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 as part of our project. We express our profound gratitude to the Norway grants for their tremendous support. We extend our gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers of our volume, not only for their kindness but also for their valuable advice, comments, and corrections. For the same we are also grateful to Warren Brown, who shepherded the book on behalf of Brepols. We would also like to thank Rosie Bonté and the entire Brepols team for their excellent cooperation, as well as the two series editors, Louisa Taylor, and Hans Jacob Orning, who oversaw the entire process and did quite a bit of work. Finally, we appreciate Sarah Thomas for her outstanding, professional proofreading and copy-editing. © FHG Haraldur Hreinsson • is Assistant Professor in the history of the Christian religion and religious studies at the University of Iceland. His research interests include the cultural history of the political and the study of historical secularities. He has recently published Force of Words: A Cultural History of Christianity and Politics in Medieval Iceland (11th-13th cts.), Northern World, 90 (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

Studia theologica islandica - Ritröð guðfræðistofnunar , 2023

The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Iceland: A New Social Reality ... more The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Iceland: A New Social Reality [In Icelandic].
The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland faces difficult challenges. The faculty’s largest problem is attendance, which has steadily decreased in the last two decades. In light of the wide-ranging social shifts taking place in the religious field in Iceland in the last two decades, this article seeks to explain the situation in which the faculty now finds itself. These shifts entail, most importantly, increased pluralization in the religious field and the completely changed position of the Lutheran majority church, the Icelandic national church, which does not enjoy the same hegemony as before, and therefore and for other reasons mentioned in the article, is dealing with its own crisis. Because of the historical, cultural, and practical ties between The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and the national church of Iceland, the article argues that the crises of these two institutions are strongly connected and overlap. Suggestions about how to react to the challenges the faculty is facing are introduced in the final section of the article.

Studia Theologica Islandica, 2019

In early 1923, a correspondence between the theologians Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and Karl Ba... more In early 1923, a correspondence between the theologians Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and Karl Barth (1886–1968) appeared in the German theological journal Christliche Welt. Respectively, Harnack and Barth represented two of the most prominent post-Enlighten-ment theological currents. At the time, Harnack was widely regarded as the leading voice of theological liberalism while Barth was seen as the champion of neo-orthodoxy or dialectical theology, a theological movement on the rise. The correspondence attracted much attention and still today it is seen amongst the most important theological debates of the 20th century. The present article contains a translation of the original 15 questions posed by Harnack and Barth’s answers to them and a commentary on the debate.

Working Paper Series of the CASHSS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” 24. Leipzig University,, 2022

The term 'sagas' has to be qualified on several levels. In the academic field of saga studies, sc... more The term 'sagas' has to be qualified on several levels. In the academic field of saga studies, scholars distinguish between several different saga genres: kings' sagas, sagas of Icelanders, contemporary sagas, legendary sagas, translated chivalric sagas, indigenous chivalric sagas, hagiographic sagas. Massimiliano Bampi, "Genre, " in The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, ed. Ármann Jakobsson, and Sverrir Jakobsson (London: Routledge, 2017), 4-5. Such a differentiated view of the medieval saga writings, however, does not correspond to how the term 'sagas' is used in popular discourse, where it is taken to refer in a general way to writings composed in Iceland during the Middle Ages, i.e. in the course of the 12 th , 13 th and 14 th centuries. The surrounding intellectual debate of the early 20 th century, which will be subject to analysis in the latter part of this article, was usually carried out with reference to the better-known sagas of the Icelanders, for example, Njáls saga, Egils saga, Laxdaela saga, Fóstbroeðra saga or Hrafnkels saga, to name but a few. Furthermore, the perceived 'Icelandicness' of the sagas is probably a modern construction. The notion of an Icelandic national identity in the medieval period is a problematic one. At the time, Iceland was part of the larger Norse-speaking cultural zone, and the discussion about a collective identity amongst the people living in Iceland in the Middle Ages has, in recent years, been carried out in the more restricted terms of regional identities.

Book Reviews by Haraldur Hreinsson

Studia theologica islandica - Ritröð guðfræðistofnunar, 2023

Review of Religionswissenschaft und Theologie: Disziplinen diskursiv denken by Christiane Nagel. ... more Review of Religionswissenschaft und Theologie: Disziplinen diskursiv denken by Christiane Nagel. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023.

Church History, 2023

Romano-centric understanding of the church" (25). Anderson shows how Innocent recognized both the... more Romano-centric understanding of the church" (25). Anderson shows how Innocent recognized both the awesome administrative potential as well as the inevitable frailty of governing through documents. The promise of uniformity was countered by the reality of the ease by which forgery or misconstrual could thwart papal intent. While the study's focus is kept honed on Iceland, with occasional discussion of other Nordic clerics in Greenland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, it could be a valuable next step in this examination to draw more comparisons with Rome's dealings with branches of Christianity lying outside of the Latin rite, particularly its interactions with the many Eastern churches and patriarchs whose relations with Rome were so complex and fraught in a period that witnessed the sack of Constantinople (1204). Innocent's rigid insistence that Eastern churches acknowledge Roman supremacy in his Fourth Lateran Council's fourth canon (1215; "one flock, one shepherd"), carried with it the implicit acknowledgment that any re-establishment of unity would necessitate acceptance of the abundance of equally valid traditions, liturgies, and customs that flourished across the continent and that had ancient roots in the history of the faith. Any attempted abridgment of such diversity would thwart the process of reunification. In many ways, the kind of conflict avoidance that Anderson describes for Icelandic prelates probably worked in both directions, with peripheral bishops, or their clerical biographers, downplaying deviance from Rome at the same time that Rome may have wished to look the other way, or at least, had to acknowledge the limitations of even its most draconian punishments. Excommunication proved remarkably ineffective against a powerful monarch like Norway's King Sverrir Sigurðarson or the many bishops who were his allies. Within historiography, Anderson's study participates in a shift away from analysis of processes of papal consolidation and Roman centralization (associated with classic historians like R. W. Southern and Robert Bartlett) toward one that focuses more on concomitant processes of local episcopal interpretation and the frequent appeals (or favor-mongering) inherent in the Roman church. As Anderson aptly shows, centralization and the continuance of local exceptionalism went hand in hand in Europe's thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, aided by the rise of documents as devices of social and legal control.

The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central and Northern Europe up to 1300, 2024

The volume presented here is the result of a collaborative effort. Initially, it was a collaborat... more The volume presented here is the result of a collaborative effort. Initially, it was a collaboration among a group of researchers who participated in the conference 'The Cult of Saints and Legitimization of Elite Power in East Central Europe and Scandinavia until 1300', held at the University of War saw on 8 and 9 November 2021, and organized by the editors. This event provided an opportunity for researchers not only to present their own work but also to exchange ideas and engage in stimulating discussions. We are especially grateful to these researchers for their willingness to consider our perspectives and suggestions during the subsequent editorial stages, as we sought to ensure that the volume was coherent. However, none of this would have been possible without the preexisting collaboration between the editors and the institutions they rep resent: the Faculty of History at the University of Warsaw and the De partment of Archaeology, Conservation, and History at the University of Oslo. This collaboration was established within the framework of the joint project titled 'Symbolic Resources and Political Structures on the Pe riphery: Legitimization of ELITES in Poland and Norway, c. 1000-1300', of which this volume is one of the outcomes. The ELITES project has received funding from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 (2019/34/H/HS3/00500). The Norway grants funded the Warsaw con ference and have also, together with the University of Warsaw, enabled this volume's open access publication. Moreover, while we invited numerous researchers to collaborate, the volume also includes chapters by members of the ELITES team, who present the results of research funded by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2014-2021 as part of our project. We express our profound gratitude to the Norway grants for their tremendous support. We extend our gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers of our volume, not only for their kindness but also for their valuable advice, comments, and corrections. For the same we are also grateful to Warren Brown, who shepherded the book on behalf of Brepols. We would also like to thank Rosie Bonté and the entire Brepols team for their excellent cooperation, as well as the two series editors, Louisa Taylor, and Hans Jacob Orning, who oversaw the entire process and did quite a bit of work. Finally, we appreciate Sarah Thomas for her outstanding, professional proofreading and copy-editing. © FHG Haraldur Hreinsson • is Assistant Professor in the history of the Christian religion and religious studies at the University of Iceland. His research interests include the cultural history of the political and the study of historical secularities. He has recently published Force of Words: A Cultural History of Christianity and Politics in Medieval Iceland (11th-13th cts.), Northern World, 90 (Leiden: Brill, 2021).

Studia theologica islandica - Ritröð guðfræðistofnunar , 2023

The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Iceland: A New Social Reality ... more The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Iceland: A New Social Reality [In Icelandic].
The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland faces difficult challenges. The faculty’s largest problem is attendance, which has steadily decreased in the last two decades. In light of the wide-ranging social shifts taking place in the religious field in Iceland in the last two decades, this article seeks to explain the situation in which the faculty now finds itself. These shifts entail, most importantly, increased pluralization in the religious field and the completely changed position of the Lutheran majority church, the Icelandic national church, which does not enjoy the same hegemony as before, and therefore and for other reasons mentioned in the article, is dealing with its own crisis. Because of the historical, cultural, and practical ties between The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies and the national church of Iceland, the article argues that the crises of these two institutions are strongly connected and overlap. Suggestions about how to react to the challenges the faculty is facing are introduced in the final section of the article.

Studia Theologica Islandica, 2019

In early 1923, a correspondence between the theologians Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and Karl Ba... more In early 1923, a correspondence between the theologians Adolf von Harnack (1851–1930) and Karl Barth (1886–1968) appeared in the German theological journal Christliche Welt. Respectively, Harnack and Barth represented two of the most prominent post-Enlighten-ment theological currents. At the time, Harnack was widely regarded as the leading voice of theological liberalism while Barth was seen as the champion of neo-orthodoxy or dialectical theology, a theological movement on the rise. The correspondence attracted much attention and still today it is seen amongst the most important theological debates of the 20th century. The present article contains a translation of the original 15 questions posed by Harnack and Barth’s answers to them and a commentary on the debate.

Working Paper Series of the CASHSS “Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities” 24. Leipzig University,, 2022

The term 'sagas' has to be qualified on several levels. In the academic field of saga studies, sc... more The term 'sagas' has to be qualified on several levels. In the academic field of saga studies, scholars distinguish between several different saga genres: kings' sagas, sagas of Icelanders, contemporary sagas, legendary sagas, translated chivalric sagas, indigenous chivalric sagas, hagiographic sagas. Massimiliano Bampi, "Genre, " in The Routledge Research Companion to the Medieval Icelandic Sagas, ed. Ármann Jakobsson, and Sverrir Jakobsson (London: Routledge, 2017), 4-5. Such a differentiated view of the medieval saga writings, however, does not correspond to how the term 'sagas' is used in popular discourse, where it is taken to refer in a general way to writings composed in Iceland during the Middle Ages, i.e. in the course of the 12 th , 13 th and 14 th centuries. The surrounding intellectual debate of the early 20 th century, which will be subject to analysis in the latter part of this article, was usually carried out with reference to the better-known sagas of the Icelanders, for example, Njáls saga, Egils saga, Laxdaela saga, Fóstbroeðra saga or Hrafnkels saga, to name but a few. Furthermore, the perceived 'Icelandicness' of the sagas is probably a modern construction. The notion of an Icelandic national identity in the medieval period is a problematic one. At the time, Iceland was part of the larger Norse-speaking cultural zone, and the discussion about a collective identity amongst the people living in Iceland in the Middle Ages has, in recent years, been carried out in the more restricted terms of regional identities.

Studia theologica islandica - Ritröð guðfræðistofnunar, 2023

Review of Religionswissenschaft und Theologie: Disziplinen diskursiv denken by Christiane Nagel. ... more Review of Religionswissenschaft und Theologie: Disziplinen diskursiv denken by Christiane Nagel. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2023.

Church History, 2023

Romano-centric understanding of the church" (25). Anderson shows how Innocent recognized both the... more Romano-centric understanding of the church" (25). Anderson shows how Innocent recognized both the awesome administrative potential as well as the inevitable frailty of governing through documents. The promise of uniformity was countered by the reality of the ease by which forgery or misconstrual could thwart papal intent. While the study's focus is kept honed on Iceland, with occasional discussion of other Nordic clerics in Greenland, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, it could be a valuable next step in this examination to draw more comparisons with Rome's dealings with branches of Christianity lying outside of the Latin rite, particularly its interactions with the many Eastern churches and patriarchs whose relations with Rome were so complex and fraught in a period that witnessed the sack of Constantinople (1204). Innocent's rigid insistence that Eastern churches acknowledge Roman supremacy in his Fourth Lateran Council's fourth canon (1215; "one flock, one shepherd"), carried with it the implicit acknowledgment that any re-establishment of unity would necessitate acceptance of the abundance of equally valid traditions, liturgies, and customs that flourished across the continent and that had ancient roots in the history of the faith. Any attempted abridgment of such diversity would thwart the process of reunification. In many ways, the kind of conflict avoidance that Anderson describes for Icelandic prelates probably worked in both directions, with peripheral bishops, or their clerical biographers, downplaying deviance from Rome at the same time that Rome may have wished to look the other way, or at least, had to acknowledge the limitations of even its most draconian punishments. Excommunication proved remarkably ineffective against a powerful monarch like Norway's King Sverrir Sigurðarson or the many bishops who were his allies. Within historiography, Anderson's study participates in a shift away from analysis of processes of papal consolidation and Roman centralization (associated with classic historians like R. W. Southern and Robert Bartlett) toward one that focuses more on concomitant processes of local episcopal interpretation and the frequent appeals (or favor-mongering) inherent in the Roman church. As Anderson aptly shows, centralization and the continuance of local exceptionalism went hand in hand in Europe's thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, aided by the rise of documents as devices of social and legal control.