Þorlákur Þórhallsson

Þorlákur Þórhallsson

Þorlákur Þórhallsson (German Thorlak Thorhallson ) (* 1133 in Fljótshlíð ; † December 23, 1193 ) was a bishop on the Icelandic bishopric in Skálholt .

Life

Þorlákur Þórhallsson was the son of Þórhall Þorláksson in Hliðarendi , Fljótshlíð , and his wife Halla Steinadóttir.

He received his training from a priest in Oddi in Rangárvellir. In 1152 he was ordained a priest. Presumably he was married. He probably studied from 1153 to 1159 at the St. Victor School in Paris and at the Augustinian Cathedral Chapter in Lincoln .

After his return he is said to have chosen the monastic life and dissolved his marriage. He lived as a teacher in Kirkjubær (South Iceland) for six years .

Around 1168 he founded the first Augustinian monastery in Iceland in Þykkvabæjarklaustur with Bishop Klængur Þorsteinsson (Klongr Thorsteinsson) of Skálholt . He headed it first as a prior , from around 1171 on as abbot .

In 1176 he was chosen by Klængur to be Bishop of Skálholt. On July 1, 1178 he was consecrated by Archbishop Øystein Erlendsson in Nidaros (Trondheim) and held his office until his death.

Founding of a monastery and dispute over property

During Thorlak's tenure, the Benedictine monastery was founded in Kirkjubær ( Kirkjubæjarklaustur ) in 1186 . He enacted Lent regulations and reformed the Church. Above all, he turned against the immorality and the habit of influential gentlemen to keep second wives ( Kebsen ).

In the summer of 1179 he traveled through his diocese and persuaded many farmers on the east fjords to transfer their farms to the church and then to receive them from the church as fiefs . The advantage for the peasants was that by handing over their farms to the church, if they continued to own the church , they could protect it from being attacked by a god or another powerful person.

After his return he got into a heated argument with the Goden Jón Loftsson in Oddi , one of the most powerful men in the country, about the sovereignty over the church property, which according to the traditional private church system belonged to the private church master.

It was a reflection of the investiture controversy that was smoldering between the emperor and the pope .

Canonization and devotion

His successor Páll Jónsson had his bones raised on the altar on July 20, 1198 ( translatio ). A papal confirmation was initially not obtained.

The day of his death, December 23, was declared a public holiday on the Althing the following year. Bishop Páll had a shrine made for the corpse, which was placed on the high altar of Skálholt. The shrine was made of gold, silver, and precious stones.

His “grave became Iceland's most important place of pilgrimage, his person stood programmatically for the freedom of the church from laical influence; the Thorlak worship received an additional national note when Iceland had to submit to Norwegian kingship in 1262. ”.

In 1237 July 20 was also declared a public holiday as the day of the translation. 56 churches in Iceland were dedicated to him.

On January 14, 1984, Pope John Paul II confirmed him as the patron saint of Iceland.

On December 23rd, in memory of him, the Þorláksmessa (Thorlaksmesse) is celebrated in Iceland , as well as in Norway , on the Faroe Islands, where he was also venerated and, since the 18th century, in Sweden, etc. a. also called Torlaksmesse , Tollesmesse , Sjursmesse or Lilla julafton .

literature

swell

• Socii Bollandiani (ed.): Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis , 2 volumes, Bruxelles 1898–1901, No. 8273–8274. (Old Norwegian miracle report)
• Agnete Loth: Den Gamle jærtegnsbog om biskop Thorlak . Oversat with inledning and efterord af Agnete Loth. Odense: Odense universitetsforlag, 1984.
• F. Caraffa et al. a. (Ed.): Bibliotheca Sanctorum , Rome 1961–1970, 12, 458f.
• Ásdís Egilsdóttir (ed.): Þorláks saga helga. Elsta gerð Þorláks sögu helga ásamt Jarteinabókog efni úr yngri gerðum sögunnar , Þorlákssjóður, Reykjavík 1989.
• Ásdís Egilsdóttir: Þorláks sögur helga , in: Jónas Kristjánsson (ed.): Biskupa sögur , vol. 2, Íslenzk fornrit 16, Hið Islenzka Fornritafélag, Reykjavík 2002, 45–294.
• Guðrún Ása Grímsdóttir u. a. ( Ed. ): Saga Biskupsstólanna. Akureyri, Hólar 2006, pp. 32–33.
• Finnur Jónsson : Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ , Vol. 1 (1772), 287-300 ( available from Google Books ), Vol. 4 (1778), 55-57.
• Oddaverja-Þáttr - The Second Life of Thorlac . Icelandic-English. In: Origines Islandicae - A collection of the more important sagas and other native writings relating to the settlement and early history of Iceland . Edited and translated by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powel. Volume I. Oxfort at the Clarendon Press, 1905. Pp. 567-591.
• Le Dit des Gens d'Oddi . Traduction de Grégory Cattaneo. Paris: Presses universitaires de Paris Sorbonne. In print.
• Róbert Abraham Ottósson: Sancti Thorlaci Episcopi officia rhythmica et proprium missae in AM 241a folio , Bibliotheca Arnamagnaeana, Supplement Volume 3, Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1959.
• Stories of the Bishops of Iceland . I, The Stories of Thorwald the Far-Farer, and of Bishop Isleif, II, Húngrvaka [the Hunger-Waker], Being Chronicles of the First Five Bishops of Skalholt, III, The Story of Bishop Thorlak the Saint . Translated by Mary CJ Disney Leith. London, J. Masters, 1895.
• Thorlaks saga - Palls saga . Oslo: Aschehoug, 2011. (Thorleif Dahls Kulturbibliotek, Vol. 43) ISBN 978-82-03-19784-0 .
• Þorláks saga - the Story of Bishop Thorlac . Icelandic-English. In: Origines Islandicae - A collection of the more important sagas and other native writings relating to the settlement and early history of Iceland . Edited and translated by Gudbrand Vigfusson and F. York Powel. Volume I. Oxfort at the Clarendon Press, 1905. Pp. 458-502.

Secondary literature

• Ármann Jakobsson, Ásdís Egilsdóttir: Er Oddaverjatþætti treystandi? In: Ný saga 11 (1999), pp. 91-100 & 102 (summary in English: Is Oddaverja þáttur a reliable source?). ( available at Timarit.is ).
• Ásdís Egilsdóttir: Jarteinir Þorláks helga Þórhallssonar , in: Árnesingur. Sögufélag Árnesinga. Rit 5: 201-206 (1998).
• Ásdís Egilsdóttir: St Þorlákr of Iceland . The emergence of a cult, in: The Haskins Society journal 12 (2003), 121-131. (partly available on Google Books)
• Hans Bekker-Nielsen: A Note on Two Icelandic Saints , in: The Germanic Review 36 (1961), 108-109.
• Paul A. Bibire: Art. "Þorláks saga helga" (the saga of St. Þorlákr) , in: Phillip Pulsiano, Kirsten Wolf (ed.): Medieval Scandinavia. An encyclopedia , Garland encyclopedias of the Middle Ages 1, New York 1993, 671.
• Régis Boyer: Thorlákr Thórhallsson (1133–1193) , in: André Vauchez u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages , Chicago 2000, Volume 2, 1439.
• Margaret Cormack: The Saints in Iceland . Their Veneration from the Conversion to 1400, Subsidia Hagiographica 78, Société des Bollandistes, Brussels 1994.
• Susanne Miriam Fahn, Gottskálk Jensson: The Forgotten Poem . A Latin Panegyric for Saint Þorlákr in AM 382 4to, in: Gripla 21 (2010), 19–60.
• Agnete Loth: Den Gamle jærtegnsbog om biskop Thorlak . Oversat with inledning and efterord af Agnete Loth. Odense: Odense universitetsforlag, 1984.
• Tore Nyberg: Thorlak (Þórlákr) Thórhallsson , in: Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3rd ed., Vol. 10 (2001), 8f.
• Tore S. Nyberg: Thorlak (þórlákr) Thórhallsson . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , column 732.
• Ekkart Sauser :  Thorlak Thorhallsson. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 17, Bautz, Herzberg 2000, ISBN 3-88309-080-8 , Sp. 1373
• Sigurður Sigurðarson: Thorlákur helgi og samtíd hans , Reykjavík 1993.
• Inge Skovgaard-Petersen: Islandsk egenkirkevæsen , in: Scandia 26 (1960), 230-296. ( Digitized version )
• Ole Widding, Hans Bekker-Nielsen, Laurence Shook: The Lives of the Saints in Old Norse Prose . A Handlist, in: Mediaeval Studies 25 (1963), 294–337.
• Kirsten Wolf: A Translation of the Latin Fragments Containing "the Life and Miracles of St Thorlákr" along with Collections of "Lectiones" for Recitation on His Feast Days . In: Proceedings of the PMR Conference - Annual Publication of the Patristic. Medieval and Renaissance Conference 14 (1989), pp. 261-276. Villanova (Pennsylvania): Villanova University, Augustinian Historical Institute.

See also

• History of Iceland

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Tore Nyberg: Art. Thorlak (Þórlákr) Thórhallsson , in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 3rd ed., Vol. 10 (2001), 8f.
2. ↑ See Sverre Bagge: Nordic Students at Foreign Universities until 1660 , in: Scandinavian Journal of History 9 (1986), 1-29.
3. ^ Tore S. Nyberg: Thorlak (þórlákr) Thórhallsson . In: Lexicon of the Middle Ages (LexMA). Volume 8, LexMA-Verlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-89659-908-9 , column 732.
4. ↑ cf. z. B. Íslandssagan í máli og myndum. Ed. Árni D. Júliússon, Jón Ó. Ísberg. Reykjavík 2005, p. 48
5. ↑ H. Bekker-Nielsen: THORLÁK THÓRHALLSSON, ST. , in: New Catholic Encyclopedia , Vol. 14, 59f.
6. ↑ T. Nyberg: Thorlak (þórlákr) Thórhallsson , in: Lexikon des Mittelalters , Vol. 8, 732.

Web links

• Brian McNeil: Torlaco , Canonici Regolari Lateranensi, Rome. (Italian)

predecessor	Office	successor
Klængur Þorsteinsson	Bishop of Skálholt 1174 - 1193	Páll Jónsson

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .