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Books by Gottskálk Jensson

Þeófrastos: Manngerðir, 2007

Hann fil.'r lp.llan koss fra elskunni sinrn og pa verOur honum aO or(h: Mir /uetti gaman aJ vita ... more Hann fil.'r lp.llan koss fra elskunni sinrn og pa verOur honum aO or(h: Mir /uetti gaman aJ vita hvort jJJi elskn-mig Ilka svona mikiO f hjarta jJfn11. Hann finnur peningapung a gOtu og andvarpar• Ald r er Jinn ig fjdrs;6iJ .' Hann er nYbl.linn aO kaupa set pril.'l a g60u verOi eftir mikiO pjark vi8 kaupmanninn, pa heyrisr hann rauta: Eg efast 11m 11/J ig haft keypt nokk110 af v1t1 fym svo liuiJ verd. •• 978-9979-66-201-3

Um kveðskap á þjóðtungu / De vulgari eloquentia, 2008

Íslensk þýðing úr latínu á hluta hinnar miklu Noregssögu Þormóðs Torfasonar (Historia rerum Norve... more Íslensk þýðing úr latínu á hluta hinnar miklu Noregssögu Þormóðs Torfasonar (Historia rerum Norvegicarum, Kaupmannahöfn 1711) ásamt eftirmála þýðanda. Ritið var gjöf norska Stórþingsins til Alþingis Íslendinga í tilefni fullveldisársins 2018. Prentað í örfáum eintökum í prentsmiðju Stórþingsins.

""While nineteenth-century scholars debated whether the fragmentary Satyrica of Petronius should ... more ""While nineteenth-century scholars debated whether the fragmentary Satyrica of Petronius should be regarded as a traditional or an original work in ancient literary history, twentieth-century Petronian scholarship tended to take for granted that the author was a unique innovator and his work a synthetic composition with respect to genre. The consequence of this was an excessive emphasis on authorial intention as well as a focus on parts of the text taken out of the larger context, which has increased the already severe state of fragmentation in which today’s reader finds the Satyrica.
The present study offers a reading of the Satyrica as the mimetic performance of its fictional auctor Encolpius; as an ancient “road novel” told from memory by a Greek exile who relates how on his travels through Italy he had dealings with people who told stories, gave speeches, recited poetry and made other statements, which he then weaves into his own story and retells through the performance technique of vocal impersonation. The result is a skillfully made narrative fabric, a travelogue carried by a desultory narrative voice that switches identity from time to time to deliver discursively varied and often longish statements in the personae of encountered characters.
This study also makes a renewed effort to reconstruct the story told in the Satyrica and to explain how it relates to the identity and origin of its fictional auctor, a poor young scholar who volunteered to act the scapegoat in his Greek home city, Massalia (ancient Marseille), and was driven into exile in a bizarre archaic ritual. Besides relating his erotic suffering on account of his love for the beautiful boy Giton, Encolpius intertwines the various discourses and character statements of his narrative into a subtle brand of satire and social criticism (e.g. a critique of ancient capitalism) in the style of Cynic popular philosophy.
Finally, it is argued that Petronius’ Satyrica is a Roman remake of a lost Greek text of the same title and belongs—together with Apuleius’ Metamorphoses—to the oldest type of Greco-Roman novel, known to antiquity as Milesian fiction.
""

Papers by Gottskálk Jensson

Gripla 35, 2024

In his edition of Postola sögur (Christiania 1874), the prolific Norwegian editor of Icelandic sa... more In his edition of Postola sögur (Christiania 1874), the prolific Norwegian editor of Icelandic sagas Carl Richard Unger (1817–1897) created four similar editorial headings to combine as many pairs of Old Icelandic translations from Latin of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Tveggia postola saga Petrs ok Pals, Tveggia postola saga Jons ok Jacobs, Tveggia postola saga Philippus og Jacobs, and Tveggia postola saga Simonis ok Jude. In his introduction, Unger notes that all headings printed in capital letters are his own inventions, while italicized headings are attested in the manuscripts on which the edition is based. The four headings mentioned above are consistently printed in capital letters. The author of this article examines the status of these titles in more detail, confirming that, as Unger indicated, these editorial headings are never attested in manuscripts but were invented specifically for this edition, likely based on the analogy of the feast-day name ‘Tveggja postola messa,’ which refers to May 1, honoring the apostles Philippus and Jacobus. The article further argues that the widespread adoption of these titles by modern scholars is likely due to Kristian Kålund, the author of the manuscript catalogue of the Arnamagnæan Collection, who incorporated Unger’s editorial headings without explanation and used them as titles when listing the contents of manuscripts.

Ritmennt. Ársrit Landsbókasafns íslands - Háskólabókasafns, 2000

Í formála að íslenskri bókmenntasögu Hálfdanar Einarssonar á latínu, Sciagraphia historiæ literar... more Í formála að íslenskri bókmenntasögu Hálfdanar Einarssonar á latínu, Sciagraphia historiæ literariæ Islandicæ (Kaupmannahöfn 1777), segist höfundur skulda „ekki ekkert" (nonnulla á latínu) íslensku skálda- og rithöfundatali á 16. og 17. öld eftir Pál Vídalín. Rit þetta var samið á latínu um 1700 undir titlinum Recensus Poetarum et Scriptorum Islandorum huius et superioris seculi. Upprunalega handritið virðist glatað en til er útdráttur þess (JS 569 4to) með hendi Hálfdanar Einarssonar og laus-
leg þýðing í tveimur útgáfum (MS Bor. 66 og JS 30 4to) eftir sr. Þorstein Pétursson á Staðarbakka. Þessa tvo texta hefur Jón Samsonarson búið til prentunar. í greininni er skoðað hvernig Hálfdan fjallar um Pál í bókmenntasögunni og hversu mikið efni hann notar úr skáldatali hans og þá hvernig. Einnig er leitað vísbendinga um hvort Hálfdan hafi notað eigin útdrátt ritsins eða hið glataða handrit sjálft við samningu bókmenntasögunnar. Markmiðið er að draga upp dálítið gleggri mynd af sambandi og sérkcnnum þessara tveggja merkustu bólcmenntasögurita frá 18. öld.

Árbók Fornleifafélagsins, 2024

Latin inscriptions from the excavation at Þingeyrar In 2022, archologists found two corroded copp... more Latin inscriptions from the excavation at Þingeyrar
In 2022, archologists found two corroded copper shields (2022-6-66 and 2022-6-65) at the site of Þingeyrar Cloister in the North of Iceland. The excavation is part of the RANNÍS-funded project „Between Man and Nature. The Making of Benedictine Communities in Medieval Iceland“, directed by Professor Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir at the University of Iceland. The shields were discovered among coffin remains in grave 15, a burial believed to have been located in the floor of the medieval and early-modern wooden churches, which stood about 150 m south of the modern church. X-ray-images revealed a Latin text on one of the shields with a partly illegible memorial inscription for Bjarni Halldórsson (d. 1773), a
well-known magistrate in the area and repesentative of the Danish Crown at Þingeyrar, who was thus identified as the owner of grave 15. The author of the article reconstructs the Latin text of the heavily damaged inscription, based on the x-ray-image and a printed document from 1777, showing a representation of a closely related Latin inscription on the tombstone of the same magistrate, which was imported from Denmark by his relatives but never placed on the grave. The article also refutes as unfounded an anecdote told of a mishap during the magistrate’s burial, which if true would have indicated that he was not buried inside the church but outside it in the surrounding graveyard. Finally, two other funeral inscriptions in Latin, which are preserved at the National Museum of Iceland and are contemporary with the newly discovered inscription are transcribed and translated for comparison.

Modern Literary Theory and the Ancient Novel: Poetics and Rhetoric. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 30, 2023

This paper builds on and continues my earlier discussion of performative stage directions in Petr... more This paper builds on and continues my earlier discussion of performative stage directions in Petronius’ Satyrica. The aim here is to look more closely at the qualifications of the many character statements in this text and to attempt a description of the riotous vocal interchange that a performance of the work would require. From investigating the inquits of the Satyrica, I argue that the frequent references made by the narrator Encolpius to the gesticulation and clamorous voices of subordinate diegetic personae, impersonated by him, must in principle also determine his own manner (or that of a vocal reader) of impersonating them, and, by inference, project an ideal recitational style for this text. By thus empha- sizing the performative aspect of the Satyrica, which I have described as ‘desultory’ because of the frequent alterations not only in discourse type but also in voice (i.e. impersonated personae), I wish to show that the impression of vocal caprice that one gets from reading or listening to this text nevertheless does not subvert the form of the classic recollection narrative and turn the Satyrica into a dramatic piece, merely tests the limits of a single voice performance.

Religions 14: 862, 2023

The monastic archives of Iceland have rarely been made the subject of specific studies. This arti... more The monastic archives of Iceland have rarely been made the subject of specific studies. This article is intended to survey the history of one such archive, belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in Northern Iceland, which was founded 1133 and dissolved 1551. Through its extraordinarily rich literary production this monastery left an indelible mark on the Northern- European cultural heritage. After the Reformation Þingeyrar Cloister remained a state-owned and ecclesiastical institution until modern times. Its archive, which is partly preserved to this day, is both the most extensive of its kind to survive in Iceland and uniquely remained in place for almost eight centuries, making it possibly the longest operated archive in the Nordic countries. The Icelanders may be better known for their sagas and mythological poetry, but their industrious literacy certainly extended to creating bureaucratic documents in accordance with the Roman tradition. French Benedictines were among the first in the world to turn the art of archival management into an academic discipline, and the Icelandic Professor Árni Magnússon (d. 1730), who is best known for his great collection of Old Icelandic manuscripts, was the first Nordic scholar to employ their methods effectively, which he used to investigate the Archive of Þingeyrar. Surveying the history of this Icelandic archive gives us insight into a constitutive science fundamental for our access to the past.

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt, 2021

Gripla XXXIII, 2022

Sources on the monastic church and library at Þingeyrar The Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in Nor... more Sources on the monastic church and library at Þingeyrar
The Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in North-West Iceland was the earliest monastic house in Iceland, established in the early 12th century. Today, it is mainly famous for its literary production and for manuscripts, some of which are still preserved. All remnants of the monastic buildings have now vanished from the face of earth, but we have fairly precise descriptions of these buildings in official appraisals from 1684 and 1704, found in the Collection of the Procurators at the National Archives of Iceland. Further, current archeological research at Þingeyrar has added considerable new knowledge about Þingeyrar, e.g. the location of the monastic church. The appraisals of Þingeyrar Abbey can be compared to other known documents, medieval annals and charters, to construct a more complete picture of the monastic buildings and their interiors, primarily of the church where the monks had their library. This study forms an introduction to the first publication of the appraisals and it attempts to tell the history of the Church of Þingeyrar Abbey, which as it turns out seems to have survived more or less intact until 1695, when the Danish official Lauritz Gottrup had it torn down and a new one built.

Saints and their Legacies, 2021

Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition in Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia. Essays in honour of Kirsten Wolf, 2022

Heimur skáldsögunnar, ritstj. Ástráður Eysteinsson, 2001

Heimur ljóðsins, ritstj. Ástráður Eysteinsson, Dagný Kirstjánsdóttir og Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, 2005

Hallamál, rétt Haraldi Bernharðssyni fimmtugum, 2018

Saltari, stilltur og sleginn Svanhildi Óskarsdóttur fimmtugri, 2014

Þórðargleði, slegið upp fyrir Þórð Inga Guðjónsson fimmtugan, 2018

Margarítur, hristar Margréti Eggertsdóttur fimmtugri, 2010

Þeófrastos: Manngerðir, 2007

Hann fil.'r lp.llan koss fra elskunni sinrn og pa verOur honum aO or(h: Mir /uetti gaman aJ vita ... more Hann fil.'r lp.llan koss fra elskunni sinrn og pa verOur honum aO or(h: Mir /uetti gaman aJ vita hvort jJJi elskn-mig Ilka svona mikiO f hjarta jJfn11. Hann finnur peningapung a gOtu og andvarpar• Ald r er Jinn ig fjdrs;6iJ .' Hann er nYbl.linn aO kaupa set pril.'l a g60u verOi eftir mikiO pjark vi8 kaupmanninn, pa heyrisr hann rauta: Eg efast 11m 11/J ig haft keypt nokk110 af v1t1 fym svo liuiJ verd. •• 978-9979-66-201-3

Um kveðskap á þjóðtungu / De vulgari eloquentia, 2008

Íslensk þýðing úr latínu á hluta hinnar miklu Noregssögu Þormóðs Torfasonar (Historia rerum Norve... more Íslensk þýðing úr latínu á hluta hinnar miklu Noregssögu Þormóðs Torfasonar (Historia rerum Norvegicarum, Kaupmannahöfn 1711) ásamt eftirmála þýðanda. Ritið var gjöf norska Stórþingsins til Alþingis Íslendinga í tilefni fullveldisársins 2018. Prentað í örfáum eintökum í prentsmiðju Stórþingsins.

""While nineteenth-century scholars debated whether the fragmentary Satyrica of Petronius should ... more ""While nineteenth-century scholars debated whether the fragmentary Satyrica of Petronius should be regarded as a traditional or an original work in ancient literary history, twentieth-century Petronian scholarship tended to take for granted that the author was a unique innovator and his work a synthetic composition with respect to genre. The consequence of this was an excessive emphasis on authorial intention as well as a focus on parts of the text taken out of the larger context, which has increased the already severe state of fragmentation in which today’s reader finds the Satyrica.
The present study offers a reading of the Satyrica as the mimetic performance of its fictional auctor Encolpius; as an ancient “road novel” told from memory by a Greek exile who relates how on his travels through Italy he had dealings with people who told stories, gave speeches, recited poetry and made other statements, which he then weaves into his own story and retells through the performance technique of vocal impersonation. The result is a skillfully made narrative fabric, a travelogue carried by a desultory narrative voice that switches identity from time to time to deliver discursively varied and often longish statements in the personae of encountered characters.
This study also makes a renewed effort to reconstruct the story told in the Satyrica and to explain how it relates to the identity and origin of its fictional auctor, a poor young scholar who volunteered to act the scapegoat in his Greek home city, Massalia (ancient Marseille), and was driven into exile in a bizarre archaic ritual. Besides relating his erotic suffering on account of his love for the beautiful boy Giton, Encolpius intertwines the various discourses and character statements of his narrative into a subtle brand of satire and social criticism (e.g. a critique of ancient capitalism) in the style of Cynic popular philosophy.
Finally, it is argued that Petronius’ Satyrica is a Roman remake of a lost Greek text of the same title and belongs—together with Apuleius’ Metamorphoses—to the oldest type of Greco-Roman novel, known to antiquity as Milesian fiction.
""

Gripla 35, 2024

In his edition of Postola sögur (Christiania 1874), the prolific Norwegian editor of Icelandic sa... more In his edition of Postola sögur (Christiania 1874), the prolific Norwegian editor of Icelandic sagas Carl Richard Unger (1817–1897) created four similar editorial headings to combine as many pairs of Old Icelandic translations from Latin of the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles: Tveggia postola saga Petrs ok Pals, Tveggia postola saga Jons ok Jacobs, Tveggia postola saga Philippus og Jacobs, and Tveggia postola saga Simonis ok Jude. In his introduction, Unger notes that all headings printed in capital letters are his own inventions, while italicized headings are attested in the manuscripts on which the edition is based. The four headings mentioned above are consistently printed in capital letters. The author of this article examines the status of these titles in more detail, confirming that, as Unger indicated, these editorial headings are never attested in manuscripts but were invented specifically for this edition, likely based on the analogy of the feast-day name ‘Tveggja postola messa,’ which refers to May 1, honoring the apostles Philippus and Jacobus. The article further argues that the widespread adoption of these titles by modern scholars is likely due to Kristian Kålund, the author of the manuscript catalogue of the Arnamagnæan Collection, who incorporated Unger’s editorial headings without explanation and used them as titles when listing the contents of manuscripts.

Ritmennt. Ársrit Landsbókasafns íslands - Háskólabókasafns, 2000

Í formála að íslenskri bókmenntasögu Hálfdanar Einarssonar á latínu, Sciagraphia historiæ literar... more Í formála að íslenskri bókmenntasögu Hálfdanar Einarssonar á latínu, Sciagraphia historiæ literariæ Islandicæ (Kaupmannahöfn 1777), segist höfundur skulda „ekki ekkert" (nonnulla á latínu) íslensku skálda- og rithöfundatali á 16. og 17. öld eftir Pál Vídalín. Rit þetta var samið á latínu um 1700 undir titlinum Recensus Poetarum et Scriptorum Islandorum huius et superioris seculi. Upprunalega handritið virðist glatað en til er útdráttur þess (JS 569 4to) með hendi Hálfdanar Einarssonar og laus-
leg þýðing í tveimur útgáfum (MS Bor. 66 og JS 30 4to) eftir sr. Þorstein Pétursson á Staðarbakka. Þessa tvo texta hefur Jón Samsonarson búið til prentunar. í greininni er skoðað hvernig Hálfdan fjallar um Pál í bókmenntasögunni og hversu mikið efni hann notar úr skáldatali hans og þá hvernig. Einnig er leitað vísbendinga um hvort Hálfdan hafi notað eigin útdrátt ritsins eða hið glataða handrit sjálft við samningu bókmenntasögunnar. Markmiðið er að draga upp dálítið gleggri mynd af sambandi og sérkcnnum þessara tveggja merkustu bólcmenntasögurita frá 18. öld.

Árbók Fornleifafélagsins, 2024

Latin inscriptions from the excavation at Þingeyrar In 2022, archologists found two corroded copp... more Latin inscriptions from the excavation at Þingeyrar
In 2022, archologists found two corroded copper shields (2022-6-66 and 2022-6-65) at the site of Þingeyrar Cloister in the North of Iceland. The excavation is part of the RANNÍS-funded project „Between Man and Nature. The Making of Benedictine Communities in Medieval Iceland“, directed by Professor Steinunn Kristjánsdóttir at the University of Iceland. The shields were discovered among coffin remains in grave 15, a burial believed to have been located in the floor of the medieval and early-modern wooden churches, which stood about 150 m south of the modern church. X-ray-images revealed a Latin text on one of the shields with a partly illegible memorial inscription for Bjarni Halldórsson (d. 1773), a
well-known magistrate in the area and repesentative of the Danish Crown at Þingeyrar, who was thus identified as the owner of grave 15. The author of the article reconstructs the Latin text of the heavily damaged inscription, based on the x-ray-image and a printed document from 1777, showing a representation of a closely related Latin inscription on the tombstone of the same magistrate, which was imported from Denmark by his relatives but never placed on the grave. The article also refutes as unfounded an anecdote told of a mishap during the magistrate’s burial, which if true would have indicated that he was not buried inside the church but outside it in the surrounding graveyard. Finally, two other funeral inscriptions in Latin, which are preserved at the National Museum of Iceland and are contemporary with the newly discovered inscription are transcribed and translated for comparison.

Modern Literary Theory and the Ancient Novel: Poetics and Rhetoric. Ancient Narrative Supplementum 30, 2023

This paper builds on and continues my earlier discussion of performative stage directions in Petr... more This paper builds on and continues my earlier discussion of performative stage directions in Petronius’ Satyrica. The aim here is to look more closely at the qualifications of the many character statements in this text and to attempt a description of the riotous vocal interchange that a performance of the work would require. From investigating the inquits of the Satyrica, I argue that the frequent references made by the narrator Encolpius to the gesticulation and clamorous voices of subordinate diegetic personae, impersonated by him, must in principle also determine his own manner (or that of a vocal reader) of impersonating them, and, by inference, project an ideal recitational style for this text. By thus empha- sizing the performative aspect of the Satyrica, which I have described as ‘desultory’ because of the frequent alterations not only in discourse type but also in voice (i.e. impersonated personae), I wish to show that the impression of vocal caprice that one gets from reading or listening to this text nevertheless does not subvert the form of the classic recollection narrative and turn the Satyrica into a dramatic piece, merely tests the limits of a single voice performance.

Religions 14: 862, 2023

The monastic archives of Iceland have rarely been made the subject of specific studies. This arti... more The monastic archives of Iceland have rarely been made the subject of specific studies. This article is intended to survey the history of one such archive, belonging to the Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in Northern Iceland, which was founded 1133 and dissolved 1551. Through its extraordinarily rich literary production this monastery left an indelible mark on the Northern- European cultural heritage. After the Reformation Þingeyrar Cloister remained a state-owned and ecclesiastical institution until modern times. Its archive, which is partly preserved to this day, is both the most extensive of its kind to survive in Iceland and uniquely remained in place for almost eight centuries, making it possibly the longest operated archive in the Nordic countries. The Icelanders may be better known for their sagas and mythological poetry, but their industrious literacy certainly extended to creating bureaucratic documents in accordance with the Roman tradition. French Benedictines were among the first in the world to turn the art of archival management into an academic discipline, and the Icelandic Professor Árni Magnússon (d. 1730), who is best known for his great collection of Old Icelandic manuscripts, was the first Nordic scholar to employ their methods effectively, which he used to investigate the Archive of Þingeyrar. Surveying the history of this Icelandic archive gives us insight into a constitutive science fundamental for our access to the past.

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt, 2021

Gripla XXXIII, 2022

Sources on the monastic church and library at Þingeyrar The Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in Nor... more Sources on the monastic church and library at Þingeyrar
The Benedictine Abbey of Þingeyrar in North-West Iceland was the earliest monastic house in Iceland, established in the early 12th century. Today, it is mainly famous for its literary production and for manuscripts, some of which are still preserved. All remnants of the monastic buildings have now vanished from the face of earth, but we have fairly precise descriptions of these buildings in official appraisals from 1684 and 1704, found in the Collection of the Procurators at the National Archives of Iceland. Further, current archeological research at Þingeyrar has added considerable new knowledge about Þingeyrar, e.g. the location of the monastic church. The appraisals of Þingeyrar Abbey can be compared to other known documents, medieval annals and charters, to construct a more complete picture of the monastic buildings and their interiors, primarily of the church where the monks had their library. This study forms an introduction to the first publication of the appraisals and it attempts to tell the history of the Church of Þingeyrar Abbey, which as it turns out seems to have survived more or less intact until 1695, when the Danish official Lauritz Gottrup had it torn down and a new one built.

Saints and their Legacies, 2021

Sainthood, Scriptoria, and Secular Erudition in Medieval and Early Modern Scandinavia. Essays in honour of Kirsten Wolf, 2022

Heimur skáldsögunnar, ritstj. Ástráður Eysteinsson, 2001

Heimur ljóðsins, ritstj. Ástráður Eysteinsson, Dagný Kirstjánsdóttir og Sveinn Yngvi Egilsson, 2005

Hallamál, rétt Haraldi Bernharðssyni fimmtugum, 2018

Saltari, stilltur og sleginn Svanhildi Óskarsdóttur fimmtugri, 2014

Þórðargleði, slegið upp fyrir Þórð Inga Guðjónsson fimmtugan, 2018

Margarítur, hristar Margréti Eggertsdóttur fimmtugri, 2010

Gripla 32 (2021), pp. 135-149, 2021

The author of this article conclusively traces the source of the two Aesopic fables retold in the... more The author of this article conclusively traces the source of the two Aesopic fables retold in the prologue to Adonias saga to the medieval collection of Latin fables known as Anonymus Neveleti (alias Romulus elegiacus), fragments of which are preserved in two Icelandic vellum bifolia (Þjms frag 103 and 104) that probably originate from the Benedictines monastic houses of North Iceland. In a review of various ancient and medieval collections of Aesop’s fables, the author concludes that the unknown Icelandic author of Adonias saga must have been familiar with the two fables in this particular Latin version, even though his Icelandic rendering of them is free and likely based on memory. A parallel to a Latin couplet cited in the prologue is furthermore identified in a bilingual encyclopædic manuscript, AM 732 b 4to, also associated with the northern Benedictines. The author of the article suggests the possibility that the incorporation of two Aesopic fables in the prologue to Adonias saga, a riddarasaga, is an indication that such sagas ought to be interpreted like fables, that is not only read as entertainment but also as ethical instruction.

Saints and their Legacies in Medieval Iceland, 2021

Latin Oratory at the Edge of the World: The Fragments of Gizurr Hallsson's *Gesta Scalotensis ecc... more Latin Oratory at the Edge of the World: The Fragments of Gizurr Hallsson's *Gesta Scalotensis ecclesie presulum and the *Vita sancti Thorlaci Gottskálk Jensson On the second day of Christmas in 1193, as the burial ceremony of Bishop Þorlákr Þórhallsson (1133-1193) was coming to an end, the aged lawspeaker of Iceland Gizurr Hallsson (c. 1116-1206) gave a long and elaborate funeral speech in the graveyard of Skálholt Cathedral. In his speech, he summarized the history of the Skálholt diocese and concluded with a short account of the life of the soon-to-be holy man. The best source for the contents of this oration is the B-redaction of Þorláks saga helga, which includes an excerpt from the speech itself, in which Gizurr reputedly said: 1 Ek hefi hér verit nǫkkurum sinnum staddr þá er þau tíðendi hafa gǫrzk er þessum eru lík. Fimm byskupar hafa hér verit niðr settir at mér hjáveranda. Fyrst Þorlákr byskup Runólfsson, þá Ketill byskup, en síðan Magnús byskup, eftir þat Kloengr byskup, en nú Þorlákr byskup. Ek hefi ok talat hér nǫkkur orð, þá ⟨er⟩ þessir atburðir hafa gǫrzk, sem siðvenja er til í ǫðrum lǫndum yfir tiginna manna grepti. En málaefni hafa verit jafnan stóriliga góð, því at þeir hafa allir verit inir mestu merkismenn í sínum byskupsdómi. Ok er gott á þat at minnast at várri grein ok at sǫgn várra forellra, um þá byskupa er hér hafa verit fyrir vára daga ok á várum dǫgum, at sá þykkir hverjum beztr sem kunnastr er. En svá dýrligir menn 1

Ancient Narrative, 2002

Roman literature is possibly the most palimpsestuous of literatures. 1 So much so that lovers of ... more Roman literature is possibly the most palimpsestuous of literatures. 1 So much so that lovers of Roman letters have had to fight off the unwanted comparison with Roman plastic arts where, as is well known, there are no originals. A series of famous names will emphasise the obvious: Plautus,

Orðlof veitt Þorbjörgu Helgadóttur 18. maí 2021, 2021

Collegium Medievale 37 , 2024

This review of Egil Kraggerud’s Latinske tekster i Norge mellom 1152 og 1230 highlights its signi... more This review of Egil Kraggerud’s Latinske tekster i Norge mellom 1152 og 1230 highlights its significant contribution to Nordic medieval studies by providing a critical edition of 12 Latin texts from ca. 1152–1230, along with Norwegian translations and commentary. The reviewer appreciates the accessibility of the work for Nordic audiences and its textual precision but critiques its selective commentary and indices. The review places the edition in the context of earlier scholarship, comparing it to Gustav Storm’s Monumenta Historica Norvegiæ and emphasizing the relationship between Norwegian and Icelandic historical contexts. The review also addresses broader issues, such as the internationalization of Nordic scholarship and the interplay between Latin and vernacular texts.

eISSN 2387-6700

Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2001

Scholia. Natal Studies in Classical Antiquity. Volume 8, pp. 152-156., 1999

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2012.12.52, 2012

A commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius and a new text edition, including of the fragmentary re... more A commentary on the Satyrica of Petronius and a new text edition, including of the fragmentary remnants of this ancient novel, have long been needed. The present volume is the first complete textual commentary in English. Although perhaps not much compared to the multi-volume Groningen Commentaries on Apuleius, it includes 730 notable pages. The least damaged third part of the text, the Cena Trimalchionis (26.7-78), which has been treated in commentaries (Friedländer, Marmorale, Maiuri, Sedgwick, Perrochat, and Smith), receives the most detailed commentary, but the importance of this publication lies primarily in covering the other two thirds of Petronius' fragments, Ch. 1-26.6 (pp. 1-81) and Ch. 79-141 (pp. 329-549). For Ch. 79-110 the authors acknowledge a debt to the new German commentary of Peter Habermehl.1 The writing began over two decades ago as the collaborative effort of J. P. Sullivan and Gareth Schmeling, longtime editor of the bibliographical The Petronian Society Newsletter. Sullivan had been working on a similar project in the sixties with his student K. F. C. Rose, who died at the age of 29.2 In 1993, soon after Schmeling joined the effort, Sullivan himself died, and the work was again interrupted, until Aldo Setaioli agreed to take over Sullivan's work on the verse. Simultaneously with the current volume Setaioli has republished his earlier studies on the short poems in Petronius.3

Scholia Reviews ns 18, 2009

Phoenix – Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, 1998

Dominican Resonances in Medieval Iceland The Legacy of Bishop Jón Halldórsson of Skálholt, 2021

By the early 14th century, when Icelandic sagas and poetry had matured into an impressive literar... more By the early 14th century, when Icelandic sagas and poetry had matured into an impressive literary system of their own, a new generation of saga writers seem to have developed a taste for importing themes, motifs, and story patterns into their sagas that were evidently picked up from continental literature, mainly those of Latin and French. In the best of these sagas we see a cultivation of playful virtuosity in the style, an increased richness of descriptive language, alliteration, and parodic exaggeration; even an ironic narrative stance, though the underlying meaning of the irony may defy definition. Equally decisive for the development of the art of the Icelandic saga in this period is the emergence of structural unity. In the early sagas, what unity there was in the narrative as a whole tended to derive from the organic unity inherent in an individual's life story, and a certain balanced vision of human existence. Though difficult to generalize, the narrative structure of these early sagas is highly episodic, rendering them rather amorphous as texts, a quality they share with most of contemporary Latin narratives. But starting from the 14th century, Icelandic literary artists begin increasingly to glue narrative episodes together, as it were, by employing such Aristotelian plot artifices as 'hidden identity,' 'recognition,' and even 'apparent death' (from classical romance), not to mention recurring significant items, such as rings, weapons, armor, and clothing. The most favoured structural innovation of this period was the bridal-quest scheme, an overall story pattern so loved by saga writers and their audiences that it soon became near irresistible.1 Another very useful scheme of this kind, especially important for the present study, is 'frame narrative,' sometimes called 'Rahmenerzählung' from its frequent use in German 19th-century story collections. Although this structural artifice did not become popular in Icelandic sagas, it was occasionally used, and deserves study because of its potential for revealing the precise sources of the new practitioners of saga writing. As is well known, earlier scholars of Old Norse-Icelandic literature were sometimes baffled by these innovative imports, into what they regarded as a pristine and indigenous tradition, complete and not in need of embellishment, though their censure differs substantially depending on whether they are 17th-century Lutheran historicists, 18th-century belletrists, or the romantic nationalists cum folklorists of more recent times. What should not be forgotten, of course, in the often critical evaluation of 14th-century innovations in Icelandic saga narrative, is the fact that from the early 12th century Icelandic literature had developed its distinctive features in a formative dialogue with Latin letters. Thus, by the 14th century it had already incurred a considerable debt to the figures and schemes of Old and New Testament narrative, Latin hagiography, historiography and pseudohistoriography. It is not for nothing that The Prose Edda and Ynglinga saga derive the origins of Nordic culture from 'Turkey' and Troy, as did the Franks theirs, and later, the French in imitation of the Romans (who in turn built on early Greek legends about the foundation of Rome). Already in the 11th and 12th century the most learned Icelanders of whom we have records, the bishops Ísleifr and his son Gizurr, Saemundr of Oddi, Teitr of Haukadalr, and his son Gizurr the lawspeaker, St Þorlákr, and Páll his successor as bishop of Skálholt, were educated not in Iceland or even Scandinavia, but on the continent or even in Norman England. Icelandic book production in general-the Gothic script derived from the Carolingian script, and the advanced systems of denotation, abbreviations, and ligatures that came with it-was imported to Iceland and borrowed from continental literacy. And yet no other literature has, to the same extent as the Icelandic medieval corpus, defined, both in prose and poetry, the peculiar qualities that count as the essence of Nordic or Germanic culture and identity. Indeed, the Icelandic skalds and saga writers almost single-handedly created what we know as the Nordic and Germanic medieval heritage. Even the 14th-century genre of rímur, Icelandic verse romances which in form and outlook ultimately derive from the French verse romance, respects

Boreas rising: Antiquarianism and national narratives in 17th- and 18th-century Scandinavia, 2019