Arngrímur Jónsson

Arngrímur Jónsson

Arngrímur on the 10 kroner note

Arngrímur Jónsson the Scholar ( Icelandic : Arngrímur Jónsson lærði, ) (* 1568 in Auðunarstaðir in Víðidalur ; † June 27 ^{. Jul} / 7. July  1648 ^{. Greg} in Melstaður in Vestur-Húnavatnssýsla ) was an Icelandic scholar. He later gave himself the suffix Widalinus (Vídalín) after his home region, which some of his descendants took over.

Life

He was the son of Jón Jónsson († 1591) and his wife Ingibjörg Loftsdóttir. According to his own statement, Arngrímur came into the household of his great cousin Guðbrandur Þorláksson , Bishop of Hólar , at the age of eight , where he grew up and received a comprehensive schooling.

In 1598 he married Solveig Gunnarsdóttir (~ 1570–1627), with whom he had four children. Three of them reached adulthood: Helga Arngrímsdóttir (1599–1646), Gunnar Arngrímsson (~ 1600–1642) and Jón Arngrímsson (~ 1610–1658).

After Solveig's death in 1628 or 1629 he married Sigríður Bjarnadóttir (~ 1601–?), A great niece of Guðbrandur Þorláksson. Of the nine children that resulted from this marriage, seven survived: Þorkell Arngrímsson (1629–1677), Solveig Arngrímsdóttir (~ 1630–1703), Ingibjörg (~ 1630–?), Þorlákur (1631–1673), Bjarni (1638– 1690), Guðbrandur (1639–1719) and Hildur (1643–1725).

Career

At the age of 17 he came to the University of Copenhagen for four years . After his return in 1589 he was rector of the Latin school in Hólar and episcopal chaplain . He held the rectorate until 1598. 1596–1628 he was the episcopal vicar representative of the bishop and administered the diocese during the long illness of the bishop until his death in 1627. During the same period he was also pastor of Melstaður, where he settled. He was the bishop's closest confidante in his violent legal disputes. In this function he traveled to Copenhagen via Hamburg in 1592, where he stayed until 1593. This and a later trip abroad to Denmark in 1602 were of great importance due to the connections established there.

Aftermath

While he was perceived by his contemporaries only as a capable prelate, posterity emphasized his national importance because earlier than other Icelanders he proved to be equal to foreign scholars. Through his books, written in Latin, he directed their gaze to medieval Iceland and its ancient literature . He is therefore considered to be the founder of the Icelandic renaissance. King Christian IV assigned him the task of collecting old manuscripts, translating them and sending them to Copenhagen for analysis. For this he received part of the taxes from the crown estate in Hallbjarnareyri. This work also led him to correct the prevailing representations of Iceland by foreign authors. He also translated various Icelandic sagas into Latin for Danish scholars, e.g. B. the Jómsvíkinga saga and the Norwegian and Danish royal sagas. They are still important today because of their sources, some of which have since been lost. Arngrímur was in constant correspondence with Danish scholars such as Ole Worm and Stephan Stephanius .

His literary activity began with Brevis Commentarius de Islandia, an attempt to correct and stamp out contemporary views on Iceland. The occasion was the Low German poem Van Yßlandt by the Hamburg resident Gories Peerse, who scorned Icelanders and their way of life. While this poem itself had not received much attention, Dithmar Blefken evidently relied on this poem in his work Islandia, sive populorum et mirabilium quæ in ea Insula reperiuntur accuratior Descriptio; Cui de Gronlandia sub finem quædam adjecta (Leiden 1607). Since he wrote in Latin, it was widely used in several editions and was translated into Dutch (1608, 1706, 1726), German (1613, 1725) and, in part, also into French. Arngrímur turned against this with his polemic Anatome Blefkeniana and, when Blefken's descriptions were still used as a basis for other authors such as David Fabricius, with the writing Epistola pro patria defensoria .

Outside of his polemical writings is his main work Crymogæa (Greek "ice land"). This shows that history was closer to him than the description of the nature and geography of the country. The contemporary conditions are only touched upon. Instead, the Icelandic language, literature and society are detailed from the discovery of the island to the beginning of the 17th century. He developed the theory that the Icelandic language spoken in his day must be the ancient language of the northerners, the same language that can be found in runic inscriptions, a branch of the ancient Gothic language. He put it alongside the classical languages ​​Latin and Greek and demanded that this language must be kept pure. This view found support in the fact that Icelandic students in Copenhagen could easily read medieval manuscripts. In the first half of the 19th century, Rasmus Christian Rask reaffirmed this view. Arngrímur described the Old Treaty as a loss of freedom, but did not yet think of Iceland's independence or the restoration of the Free State. Instead, he praised the Danish kings for their care for their Icelandic subjects. His last writing was Specimen Islandiæ historicum . In it he presented the land grab and opposed the view that Iceland was identical to Thule. A few years earlier he had written the more personal work Apotribe virulentæ et atrocis Calumniæ .

He also tried his hand as an Icelandic and Latin poet and also wrote legal writings in his mother tongue and other texts in Latin.

Arngrímur Jónsson is considered to be the pioneer of Icelandic humanism.

Works

• Idea veri Magistratus, dissertation, Copenhagen 1589 (lost)
• Brevis Commentarius de Islandia, Copenhagen 1593
• Historia Jomsburgensium (Latin translation of the Jómsvíkinga saga), first printed in full in 1877
• Supplementum Historiæ Norvegicæ (1596/97)
• Rerum Danicarum Fragmenta (1596/97)
• Psalmur í Davíðs Psaltara sá XCI af Síra Arngrími Jónssyni, Hólar 1598
• Soliloquia de passione Jesu Christi, (isl.), [Hólar] 1599, 1651, 1662, 1677, 1697
• Crymogæa sive Rerum Islandicarum Libri III (1597–1602), Hamburg 1609, 1610, 1614, 1618 and more often
• Gronlandia (1597-1602), isl. Gronlandia eður Grænlandz saga, Skálholt 1688, and dan. Grönlandia eller Historie om Grønland, Copenhagen 1732
• Theoria, vel Speculum vitæ æternæ / Speigell Eilifz Lijfs, [Hólar] 1607
• Anatome Blefkeniana, Hólar 1612, Hamburg 1613
• Epistola pro patria defensoria, Hamburg 1618
• Krosskveðjur þess heilaga kjenniföðurs, [Hólar] 1618
• Biblia parva eður Almennilegur Catechism (1590), printed 1622
• Ἀποτριβὴ [Apotribe] virulentæ et atrocis Calumniæ, Hamburg 1622
• Ἀθανασία [Athanasia] sive nominis ac famæ Immortalitas Reverendi ac incomparabilis Viri Dn. Gudbrandi Thorlacii, Hamburg 1630
• Specimen Islandiæ historicum, et magna ex parte chorographicum, Amsterdam 1643

Web links

• Brevis Commentarius de Islandia (lat./engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Jakob Benediktsson: The Life and Career of Arngrímur Jónsson . In: Jakob Benediktsson (Ed.): Arngrimi Jonæ opera Latine conscripta . 1st edition. Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana, Vol. XII. Ejnar Munksgaard, Copenhagen 1957, ISBN 978-87-635-3359-1 , pp. 4 .
2. ↑ Arngrímur Jónsson: Ἀποτριβὴ virulentæ et atrocis Calumniæ . Johannes Moses, Hamburg 1622, p. 27 .
3. ↑ Jón Halldórsson: To Séra Arngrim Jonsson officialis . In: Hannes Þorsteinsson (ed.): Biskupasögur Jóns prófasts Haldórssonar í Hítardal . tape II. , Hólabiskupar 1551–1798. Prentsmiðjan Gutenberg, Reykjavík 1915, p. 75-79 .
4. ↑ finnur jónsson : De Arngrimo jonae . In: Finni Johannæi Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ . Tomus III. Gerhard Giese Salicath, Copenhagen 1775, p. 443-449 .
5. ↑ Viktor Hantzsch:  Blefken, Dithmar . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 47, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1903, pp. 17-19.
6. ↑ The old contract (Gamli Sáttmáli) on Wikisource
7. ↑ For the previous: Gunnar Karlsson: Den islandske renæssance . In: Annette Lassen (ed.): Det norrøne og det nationale. Proceedings of a conference at the University of Reykjavík 17. – 18. March 2006. pp. 29-40, 31-33.

This article is based on a public domain text from the Danish-language lexicon Dansk biografisk leksikon in the 1st edition from 1887 to 1905. Please only remove this note if you have revised or rewritten the article to the extent that the text reflects the current state of knowledge on this topic.

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 .