Power and piety : church topography and episcopal influence in Northern Iceland 1106-1318 A.D.

Abstract

In this thesis I will address the church topography of the northern of Iceland’s two bishoprics in the period from it establishment in 1106 to 1318. The last was the year in which bishop Auðun rauði Þorbergsson of Hólar issued a church register, accounting for the churches in his bishopric. A curious distribution of high-status churches is revealed from this document, with a near total lack of them in the vicinity of the epsicopal seat, while frequent appearances of them in the other regions of the north. Possible reasons for this apparently inconsistent spatial distribution of status churches in Hólar bishopric will be considered. Factors to be discussed include the consequences from the stablishment of the epsicopal seat, and various aspects of episcopal power and influence, seen in relation to secular interests. Moreover, I will consider the settlement pattern in the bishopric, as well as the relevance of the absence of a town in the area. Norwegian influence on the Icelandic Church, particularly manifested in church reforms originating from the archbishop in Nidaros in Trøndelag, will also be discussed. Important when considering several of these elements is the presupposition that social power is achievable through materialisation of ideology, and the control of this. Two ways in which materialisation of ideology can appear are as monuments and ceremonies, both of which can contribute to making ideology an effective source of social power when controlled by a dominant group. In order to shed new light on the church topography in Hólar bishopric, I will introduce a comparative material from Trøndelag, i.e. the core area of Nidaros archbishopric. Following the establishment of the new archbishopric of Nidaros in 1152/53, it became easier for the archbishop to deal with matters of the Church in Iceland, and even more so from the middle of the 13th century, when Iceland came under Norwegian rule.