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VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON ICELAND. 649
year 12743 and that the Icelanders did not yield in zeal to their fellow-chriftians, ap-
pears by the willingnefs with which they contributed both men and money to the cru-
fades, which were then in fafhion. +
Amongtt other faints, the bifhop of Hoolum, John Ogmundffon, and the bifhop of
Skallholt, Thorlax Thorhallflon, were worfhipped: the laft died in 1193, and though
he was not canonized by any pope, yet he found worthippers in Iceland *, Denmark,
Norway, England, Scotland, the Orkneys, the Ferro iflands, and in Greenland, and
even had a church dedicated to him in Conftantinople. His Saga is full of miracles,
faid to have been wrought by him. It was unanimoufly agreed that the tenth of Ja-
nuary, the day on which he died, and the third of July, when he was elected bifhop,
fhould both be annually celebrated. His body was taken out of the grave on the thir-
teenth of Auguft 1198, and put into a coflin plated with gold and filver; and it was
refolved to keep this day alfo as a feftival, The proteftant bifhop Giffur Ejnarffon, af-
terwards, from a miftaken zeal, caufed the precious ornaments with which the box was
adorned to be broken off, and had it covered with brafs gilt, which is {till preferved in
the church of Skallholt, as a piece of antiquity. Inthe year 1715, bifhop John Widalin
ordered the pretended relique to be buried, and only a bit of his fkull is fhewn, which,
however, if clofely examined, will be found to be neither more nor lefs than a piece of
cocoa-fheil. Arcimboldus, fo famous in the north for his fale of indulgences, was much
too attentive to his intereft to have neglected Iceland. In1517 he had his own agent
there, who was, however, more coldly received by bifhop Stephen Jonflon than he ex-
pected.
The Icelanders firft received their own bifhops in the year to57 at Skallholt, and at
Hoolum in 1107. They were originally under the jurifdiction of the archbifhop of
Bremen and Hamborough; but in the year 1103 or 4, they became fubordinate to
Azerus f, firft archbifhop of Lundin §cania, and in 1352 to the bifhop of Drontheim.
The Icelanders preferve the memory of their prelates both in their annual regifters, and
in their fagas, which particularly deferve attention, fince the aétions of many worthy
men are found recorded therein. I fhall mention the deplorable end of one of their
bifhops, John Jerechini{, by birth a Dane, who was provoft and electus of Welteras,
and was appointed archbifhop of Upfala, by King Ericus Pomeranus. Jn this exalted
fituation he behaved fo ill, that he was obliged to fy to Denmark in 1419; from whence,
according to the account of the Icelandic regifters, he made the beft of his way to Eng-
land, and from thence took his paflage for Iceland, where he did not arrive till the year
1430. He was received by the inhabitants with open arms, and appointed to the fee
of Skallholt, which had been vacant eleven years. Here he difcovered fo much pride
and felfithnefs, that fome of the principal perfons in the country entered into a confpi-
racy, and when he was celebrating mafs in the cathedral church, on the thirteenth of
Auguft 1433, in commemoration of St. Thorlak, they took him by force from the altar,
{tripped him of all his epifcopal ornaments, and putting him into a fack, witha large ftone
round his neck, threw him into the river Bruar, which flows paft Skallholt, fram whence
shis body was afterwards drawn, and buried in the cathedral church §.
-* Bifhop Finnfen in his Ecclefiaical Hiftory mentions, vol. I. p. 295, note b, that bifhop Thorlax had
been likewife worfhipped asa faint in Sweden, but there are no veltiges of this found in the old Swedith
Calendaria. The tenth of January is confecrated to Paulus Eremita, and Auguft the thirteenth to Hippo-
Htus and Loctis Martii.
+ In the Icelandic annals he is commonly called Azfur.
t The Icelandic annals call him Jon Geirreckflon.
§ This account will ferve to corre&t what is erroneous in Rhyzelit Ep‘fcopofcopia, where the typogra-
phical faults in Peringfkold’s Monumenta Uplandica, vol, I. p. 155, have been copicd. Vide Fina. Hik.
Eccl. Iflan. vol. H. p. 471.
VOL. I. GEIR King
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