Bishops' saga

The bishops' saga (Old Norse and modern Icelandic biskupasaga, modern Icelandic plural biskupasögur, Old Norse plural biskupasǫgur) is a genre of medieval Icelandic sagas, mostly thirteenth- and earlier fourteenth-century prose histories dealing with bishops of Iceland's two medieval dioceses of Skálholt and Hólar.[citation needed]

Sagas about Skálholt bishops

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Two þættir are also relevant: Ísleifs þáttr biskups and Jóns þáttr Halldórssonar.

Sagas about Hólar bishops

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Several of the Hólar sagas are associated with the North Icelandic Benedictine School which flourished in the fourteenth century.

Editions

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  • The principal modern edition of these sagas is Biskupa sögur, Íslenzk fornrit, 15-17 (Reykjavík: Hið Íslenzka Fornritafélag, 2002–3).
  • Biskupa sögur. Vol. 1. Kaupmannahöfn [Copenhagen]: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag. 1858.
  • Biskupa sögur. Vol. 2. Kaupmannahöfn [Copenhagen]: Hið íslenska bókmenntafélag. 1878.
  • A number of these sagas are edited and translated in Gudbrand Vigfusson; Powell, F. York (1905). Origines Islandicae: A collection of the more important sagas and other native writings relating to the settlement and early history of Iceland. Vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sources

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Ásdís Egilsdóttir (1993). "Biskupa sögur". In Pulsiano, Phillip; Wolf, Kirsten (eds.). Medieval Scandinavia: An encyclopedia. New York: Garland. pp. 45–46. ISBN 0824047877.