Jón Gerreksson

The upper reaches of the Brúará River, not far from Skálholt, where Bishop Jón Gerreksson was drowned

Jón Gerreksson (* 1378 ? † July 20, 1433 ) was a bishop of Skálholt in southern Iceland . He held the office from 1426.

Beginnings of his career

His exact ancestry is unknown, but he obviously came from a good family and had found an influential patron in Erich von Pommern , who caused Jón Gerreksson to become Archbishop of Uppsala in Sweden in 1408 . There he acquired a rather dubious reputation, primarily because of his life course, which was hardly appropriate for a cleric. In 1422 the Pope declared him unsuitable for the priesthood because of numerous violations of celibacy .

In 1426, however, sources name him as a member of the papal guard, the forerunner of today's Swiss Guard , in Rome .

Bishop of Skálholt

Under Pope Martin V he rose again in the church and was awarded the diocese of Skálholt in 1426 , for which he paid a lot of money. Probably his patron Erich von Pommern, who was King of Denmark at the same time, had a hand in it. This possibly wanted to create a counterweight in Iceland against the considerable political and economic influence of England in the country, after all, the English had succeeded in having one of their own, Jón Vilhjálmsson Craxton, consecrated as Bishop of Hólar in the north of the country.

The bishop in Iceland

Jón Gerreksson did not travel to Iceland for the first time until 1430, after a stopover in England. He used his own ship and had his own mercenary troops with him.

At first the new bishop was welcomed in a friendly manner. However, his men quickly acquired an extremely bad reputation, which quickly rubbed off on the bishop himself.

The disputes initially ended when it was decided on the Alþing in 1431 to expel the bishop's mercenaries from the country. The bishop did nothing of the sort, however.

In 1432 there were, presumably, some clashes with the English, who did not want their business to be spoiled, which the people of Gerreksson usually did not succeed either.

The episcopal murder

The exact advance of the events cannot be reconstructed from the historical sources, but it is reported that the great interest of the leader of the mercenary troops for a certain Margrét Vigfúsdóttir was related to this. The woman rejected the mercenary leader. Thereupon he rode with his men to her brother's farm, where she lived, with the intention of burning down the Kirkjuból farm and all its residents. Significantly, her brother Ívar had particularly advocated the banishment of the mercenaries at the parliamentary session. Ívar died in the clashes, but Margrét fled to Eyjafjörður , where she allegedly made an oath to marry the one who would avenge her brother's death.

The most important opponents of the bishop at the time were Teitur ríki Gunnlaugsso n from Bjarnanes in Hornafjörður and Þorvarður Loftsson from Möðruvellir . The bishop had them both arrested without further ado, brought to Skálholt and done forced labor there. Þorvarður escaped captivity in the autumn of 1432, but Teitur only the following spring. Þorvarður, Teitur and Árni Einarsson Dalskeggur gathered a team and appeared on July 20, 1433 in Skálholt. There they killed all the mercenaries they could get hold of, finally pulled the bishop himself out of the church, put him in a sack and drowned him in the nearby river Brúará . It was done this way so that no one could claim that they had shed the bishop's blood. As far as is known, the crime was not punished. Þorvarður and Margrét married in 1436, lived in Möðruvellir and were considered the richest couple of their time in Iceland.

Historical evaluation

The historian Björn Þorsteinsson has advocated the thesis that the murder was a political attack by the English. The historian also saw a connection with Jón Craxton, the Bishop of Hólar , whose most ardent supporter was Loftor Guttormsson , the father of Þorvarður.

In any case, this much is certain that Jón Gerreksson's official brother in Hólar never lifted a finger to punish the crime.

See also

• History of Iceland

Literature and web links

• Óspektir og rán Englendinga ; Article (Icelandic) in: Lesbók Morgunblaðsins 1967
• Myrtur_biskup. Morgunblaðið 12. ágúst 1984 (Icelandic)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Morgunblaðið , August 12, 1984, s. Web links
2. ↑ cf. Morgunblaðið, August 12, 1984, s. Web links
3. ↑ cf. Article (isl.) In Morgunblaðið , 12. August 1984; accessed: November 1, 2010  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ This follows e.g. B. also Árni D. Júlíússon u. a .: Íslands sagan. Reykjavík 2005, p. 106

predecessor	Office	successor
Árni Ólafsson	Bishop of Skálholt 1426 - 1433	Jón Vilhjálmsson Craxton

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 .