Erland from the Faroe Islands

Statue of Bishop Erlendur in the west facade of Nidaros Cathedral

Erland of the Faroe Islands (from Bergen ; † June 13, 1308 ibid; Faroese Erlendur , Norwegian Erlend ) was 1269-1308 bishop in Kirkjubøur , Faroe Islands .

Erlendur was a teacher and canon in Bergen when he was ordained bishop of the Faroe Islands in January 1269. He played an important role not only ecclesiastically but also politically in the Faroe Islands and Norway. For example, he was one of the seven bishops who oversaw the coronation and swearing-in of Erik Magnusson on July 25, 1280 in Bergen.

Erlendur was based in the old Kirkjubøargarður farm and had the Magnus Cathedral built next door . In 1298 he and Lagmann Sigurd von Shetland wrote the oldest known document of the Faroe Islands, the sheep letter, on behalf of Duke Håkon Magnusson .

Erlendur may also have been at Håkon Magnusson's coronation as King Håkon V on November 1, 1299 in Nidaros , but there are no documents about this. Erlendur did not reappear until December 5, 1305 to assist the canon Arne Sigurdsson as Bishop of Bergen. King Håkon also took part in this ceremony. Erlend's position is also expressed by the fact that he was one of the sixteen clergymen who countersigned a decree from the king on December 10, 1305, in which the king gave the island of Bygdøy near Oslo to his wife Eufemia von Rügen . Then he appears in other documents from prominent contemporaries.

Later, the relationship between Bishop Erlendur and King Håkon deteriorated, as serious accusations were made against each other. In particular, he was accused of collecting all taxes and land in the Faroe Islands. Ultimately, Erlendur (and with it the Church) seems to have been successful, because never before has the Church in the Faroe Islands had so much power and land - but the Faroese revolted. Legend has it that Erlendur was killed in a battle in Kirkjubøur Cathedral when, in a kind of civil war, the people of the north of the Faroe Islands, on whose side he stood, were defeated by those of the south. It is much more likely, however, that he had to leave the Faroe Islands because of his growing unpopularity as a greedy tax collector.

A letter from his friend Bishop Arne von Bergen dated June 22, 1308 to his colleague on Skåholt (Iceland) and Greenland indicates that Erlendur did not die on June 13, 1308 in Kirkjubøur, but probably in Bergen. After Erlend's death there was no bishop in the Faroe Islands for the next four to five years because Arne von Bergen and Archbishop Jørund von Nidaros could not agree on a successor. In the end, Jørund's proposal prevailed after Archbishop Nikolaus von Uppsala , and Lodin von Borgund became Bishop of the Faroe Islands.

Allegedly Erlendur is buried in Kirkjubøur. In 1420, the Faroese bishop Jon is said to have exhumed the German Erlend's corpse because there were indications that he should be canonized. Allegedly a rune stone was found, which is said to have been a praise to Erlendur in Latin and reported that his cathedral church burned down, which is why he had it rebuilt in stone (the Magnus Cathedral).

A sculpture by Erlendur stands in the western front of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim , Norway.

See also

• History of the Faroe Islands
• List of bishops of the Faroe Islands

literature

• GVC Young : Færøerne: Fra vikingetiden til reformationen , Copenhagen 1982.
• JFWest : Erlendr. Bishop of the Faroe Islands , in: Byron J. Nordstrom (editor): Dictionary of Scandinavian History , Westport, Connecticut (Greenwood Press), 1986, p. 175-6