North Icelandic Benedictine School

Relationships between the major members of the North Icelandic Benedictine School

The North Icelandic Benedictine School (Norðlenski Benediktskólinn) is a fourteenth-century Icelandic literary movement, the lives, activities, and relationships of whose members are attested particularly by

• Árni Lárentíusson, author of Dunstanus saga (translated from the Latin life of the Anglo-Saxon Saint Dunstan).
• Arngrímr Brandsson, author of Guðmundar saga D, and possibly the translator of Thomas saga erkibyskups (the life of Thomas Becket).
• Bergr Sokkason, author of Nikulás saga erkibiskups (a translation of the life of St Nicholas) and Mikaels saga höfuðengils (the life of the Archangel Michael); and possibly the L-version of Jóns saga helga, Guðmundar saga C, and Jóns þáttr Halldórssonar. He or his associates may also have composed a substantial number of other sagas, such as Kirjalax saga, Rémundar saga keisarasonar, and Dínus saga drambláta.
• Laurentius saga and the Lögmannsannáll
  .
• Einarr Gilsson.

Among the various manuscripts which can be associated with the movement, the mid-fourteenth-century AM 657 a-b 4to is a good example: it is the oldest manuscript to contain the text of Bergr's

References

• Sigurdson, Erika Ruth, 'The Church in Fourteenth-Century Iceland: Ecclesiastical Administration, Literacy, and the Formation of an Elite Clerical Identity' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 2011), pp. 54–56 http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/2610/ [1]