Religious Instruction (Homilies, Sermons, etc.)

Abstract

As many introductions point out, works of religious instruction are among the first writings in Old Norse-Icelandic literary culture, and the oldest extant manuscripts (from the second half of the twelfth century) tend to preserve religious compositions and translations. Though many were edited in the nineteenth century, these religious works have historically often been overshadowed in scholarship by the Íslendingasögur (Sagas of Icelanders) and other genres presumed to be indigenous. Conversion brought to the medieval north the Latin alphabet, the development of an ecclesiastical and educational infrastructure, and the necessity for works of religious instruction. From the start, religious instruction seems to have been in the vernacular, so Latin—and occasionally Old and Middle English—texts were translated for usage by the monastic institutions charged with pastoral care. The Latin manuscripts for these translation projects were sourced from Continental Europe and the British Isles, perhaps brought back by the many early Icelandic ecclesiastics who were educated abroad. Sermons were likely among the first writings in Old Norse-Icelandic, but translations of all or parts of Honorius Augustodunensis’s Elucidarius, Gemma animae, and Imago mundi were made by the thirteenth century. The Physiologus, Alcuin’s De virtutibus et vitiis, Gregory the Great’s Dialogues and homilies, biblical and apocryphal texts, visionary literature, collections of exempla, and liturgical service books were also translated for devotional edification. Many of these works were copied over and over again in Icelandic manuscripts throughout the medieval period and before the arrival of the Protestant Reformation (and indeed after). Throughout the thirteenth century, the breadth of knowledge required in manuals of religious instruction expanded. Priests were expected to educate their parishioners in the articles of the faith, the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins and corresponding virtues, the sacraments (especially penance), and the necessity of reciting prayers such as the Ave maria and Paternoster. As new works became available, such as Hugh Ripelin of Strasburg’s Compendium theologicae veritatis, the works of the Victorines, exempla collections, or handbooks for confessors modeled after the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), they did not replace, but rather supplemented, already available works of religious instruction. These translated works clearly had a profound influence on Old Norse-Icelandic literature and culture and resulted in original compositions that relied on this Latin ecclesiastical learning. The thirteenth-century Konungs skuggsjá, a dialogue between father and son that owes much to the Speculum genre, is a prominent example.