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The Flateyjarbôk Annals as a Historical Source
Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
Published online: 06 Nov 2010.
To cite this article: Elizabeth Ashman Rowe (2002) The Flateyjarbôk Annals as a Historical Source, Scandinavian Journal of
History, 27:4, 233-242, DOI: 10.1080/03468750216054
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Scand. J. History 27, pp. 233Ä…242. ISSN 0346-8755
The Flateyjarbok Annals as a Historical Source
Â
A Response to Eldbjłrg Haug
Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
In 1997, Eldbjłrg Haug published an assessment of the value of the Icelandic
annals Ä… especially the Logmann's Annals Ä… as historical sources.1 Her conjectures
È
about the effect of contemporary political situations on the annals' accounts of
other events are plausible, and some of her conclusions are valid. Because much of
Haug's article is informed by surprise at discovering that these documents are not
what she and other Scandinavian historians had assumed they were, it is worth
reviewing a few of Haug's key points from the perspective of the Flateyjarbo
Âk
Annals, whose sources and process of compilation are fairly well understood.2
Moreover, because the Flateyjarbok Annals draw on the Logmann's Annals, they
 È
help date the first phase of the latter's compilation.
First, a brief summary of the compilation process is in order. As is revealed in
Storm's introduction to his edition of the oldest annals, the Icelandic annalists
created their notices in a number of ways.3 Most made use of earlier written
sources: annalists copied notices from other annals without changing them; they
created notices by combining information found in several written sources and
leaving the wording of these documents unchanged; and they created notices by
editing text found in one or more sources (e.g. leaving words out or using different
words to convey essentially the same meaning). In addition, notices could be
created from information derived from non-written sources, such as the reports of
eye-witnesses, second-hand accounts, or the annalist's own opinions. Information of
this kind could also be included in notices whose other descriptions are based on
written sources, in the ways just listed. Finally, it is important to know how these
words could be set down on the page. Annalists starting a new manuscript or
continuing an existing one set down their notices in the primary writing space, for
Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, born 1961, Ph.D. (Cornell University 1989). Important published works include:
Forthcoming: The Development of Flateyjarbok: Iceland and the Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of 1387
Â
(Viking Collection 15, Odense UP, 2003); ªSorla Ä…attr: The literary adaptation of myth and legendº (Saga-Book of
È Â
the Viking Society 26, 2002); ªCultural Paternity in the Flateyjarbok Olafs saga Tryggvasonarº (Alvõssma 8,
   Âl
1998); ªFolktale and Parable: The Unity of Gautreks Sagaº (Gripla 10, 1998); ªGeneric Hybrids: Norwegian `Family'
Sagas and Icelandic `Mytho-Heroic' Sagasº (Scandinavian Studies 65, 1993). Present research: Annals and Sagas:
Historical Writing in Fourteenth-Century Iceland.
Address: 176 Summer Street #3, Somerville, MA 02143, USA. E-mail: [e-mail]
1
E. Haug, ªThe Icelandic Annals as Historical Sourcesº, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 22 (1997),
pp. 263Ä…74.
2
See E. Haug, Provincia Nidrosiensis i dronning Margretes unions- og maktpolitik (Trondheim, 1996), pp. 33Ä…
35, for references to historians who have assumed that the last notices in Icelandic annals were
independent continuations updated year by year.
3
G. Storm, Islandske annaler indtil 1578 (Christiania, 1888), pp. iiiÄ…lxxxiv.
# 2002 Taylor & Francis
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234 Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
example in a two-column format with a few line spaces between the entries. Later
annalists contributing to that same manuscript could add information (gathered by
any of the means described above) to one of those earlier notices by writing above a
line of text, in the margin, or in the blank space left after the entry, if there was one.
Thus what appears to be a single notice could in fact be composed of several
ªlayersº of writing: a first layer, formed when an annalist created the notice from
scratch or compiled it from one or more sources, and subsequent layers, formed
when one or more annalists added information to entries already in their
manuscript. Storm draws attention to these series of accretions both in his
introduction and within the edited text.
Next, let us turn to the annals in Flateyjarbo (GKS 1005 fol), a very large and
Âk
Â
beautifully decorated manuscript now at the Stofnun Arna Magnussonar a Islandi.
 ÂÂ
Sometimes referred to as the Flateyjaranna (ªAnnals of Flat Islandº), this text is the
Âll
work of one person, Magnu Ä…orhallsson. The manuscript was begun in 1387 by
Âs Â
Jo Ä…o for Jo Hakonarson, a wealthy farmer from the north of Iceland, but
Ân ÂrDarson Ân Â
Jo Ä…o left Iceland in 1388 and Magnus was brought in to continue the
Ân ÂrDarson Â
effort. He copied several king's sagas and shorter texts into the book and then
added the annals, starting from 46 BC and continuing until AD 1394. Magnu
Âs
worked from several older Icelandic annals, including the Logmann's Annals
È
(Logmannsanna or ªJusticiar's Annalsº), which were first compiled by the cleric
È Âll
Einar HafliDason (1307Ä…1393), Jo Hakonarson's friend and neighbor, and which
Ân Â
were later continued by a series of other annalists. These annals were Magnus's
Â
source for the notices up until 1388.4 The so-called ªOldest Annalsº (Annales
vetustissimi or Elztu annalar) provided the notices for the last decade of the 13th
Â
century, and several other annals (the Skalholtsanna the Konungsanna in Icelandic
 Âll, Âll
translation, and lost annals from western Iceland) served as additional sources.
Magnus had difficulty collating the notices, sometimes writing down the same event
Â
in two different years and sometimes combining fragments from two sources that
had no connection with each another. He also made a poor job of copying the
manuscript of the Elztu annalar.5 However, the notices for the last five to six years,
Â
which are very thorough and a valuable source of information, are a different
matter. Magnus composed them himself, writing them down over time and leaving
Â
room for information to be filled in later.6 He seems to have worked on the annals
4
S. Nordal, Flateyjarbo vol. 4 (Akranes,1945), p. xiii.
Âk,
5
As the editors of the diplomatic text of Flateyjarbo put it, ªDenne Afskrift er paa mange Steder meget
Âk
feilagtig, Gyldentallet i Randen svarer ofte ikke til Texten inde paa Siden, Begivenhederne ere
anforte under urigtige Aarstal, og hvor nogen Uoverensstemmelse med Annales Regii finder Sted,
kan man vÅ„re vis paa, at den sidste Bog har det retteº [This copy is in many places full of errors, the
Paschal letters in the margin often do not match the text on the page, the events are entered under
the wrong years, and where there are any discrepancies with the Annales Regii, one can be certain
that the latter book is correct] G. Vigfusson & C. R. Unger, Flateyjarbok: En Samling af norske Konge-
 Â
Sagaer med indskudte mindre Fortńllinger om Begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt Annaler, vol. 3 (Christiania,
1868), p. xv.
6
 Â
O. Halldorsson, Grettisfńrsla. Safn ritgerDa eftir Olaf Halldorsson gefiD u a sjotugsafmńli hans 18. April 1990
  Ât  È
(Reykjavõk, 1990), pp. 208Ä…209. Based on the dates given in the notices, it appears that Magnus did
 Â
not finish with the annals before the autumn or early winter of the year 1394. He probably intended
to fill in the gaps later, but that did not happen, and Halldorsson guesses that Magnus did not touch
 Â
the book again after he finished the annals.
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The Flateyjarbok Annals as a Historical Source 235
Â
continuously until the end of the notice for 1390, after which there is a gap of about
three lines. In the notice for 1391 there are blank lines in three places and three
empty lines before the next entry. Between the notices for 1392 and 1393 are four
empty lines. In the notice for 1393 are three blank spaces for people's names, and in
the sentence that tells of the death of Einar HafliDason, there are blank spaces for
the lengths of his tenures as officialis and manager of the bishopric of Holar. The
Â
notice for 1394 is the last one; Magnus reports that Bishop Vilchin landed at
Â
Hvalfjo and arrived at Skalholt on the feast of St. Bartholomew (August 24).
ÈrDur Â
He also mentions that the priest Jo Ä…o had travelled with the bishop, had
Ân ÂrDarson
been away for six years, and had held office at Krosskirkja. This almost certainly
refers to the first scribe of Flateyjarbo who must have gone to Norway in the
Âk,
summer of 1388. In this last notice are four blank spaces, and after the last one
there is an entry about the punishment of two monks that has been scraped off.
With this information in mind, let us return to Haug, who at the outset ªshared
the common opinion that the Annals were contemporary to the events they
describeº.7 Common or not, this view is, as we have just seen, only partially true.
For any particular annal, anything from zero to one hundred percent of the first
layer may have been written more or less contemporaneously with the events
described. In the case of the Flateyjarbok Annals, the contemporaneous entries do
Â
not start until 1389 or 1390. As most of the extant annals are copies and
compilations of other annals, at some remove from the original layer(s) of writing, it
may well be that a particular annal does not contain any contemporaneous entries
at all.
Haug soon discovered that in different annals an event was not always annotated
in the same year and that some events were even written about twice in the same
annal, but under different years.8 These differences and duplications could have
arisen from a variety of causes. Not everyone knew when a particular event took
place, and when they did think that they knew, they did not always agree.
Moreover, the annals mostly use Easter letters rather than numerals to indicate the
year of an entry, and because the system of Easter letters became less and less used
in Iceland, a scribe who had accurate dates for events could, through his
unfamiliarity with the Easter letters, set down the information in the wrong place, a
mistake that would then be propagated in copies of his work. Similarly, duplication
of information can be the result of compiling sources that disagreed about the year
in which a particular event occurred, as happened with the Flateyjarbok Annals.
Â
Thus, when Haug asks whether it could be that the annals were not written year by
year in an ongoing process after all, the answer is definitely yes: the annals were not
necessarily written year by year; rather, their contents were organized by year.
Haug then reviews several chronological errors in the later hands of the
Logmann's Annals (e.g. deaths that were recorded as having happened years before
È
those persons actually died) and concludes that these annalists were adding
information about events long after those events had taken place.9 This is indeed
7
E. Haug, ªThe Icelandic Annals as Historical Sourcesº, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 22 (1997),
p. 263.
8
Haug, op. cit., p. 263.
9
Haug, op. cit., pp. 268Ä…269.
Scand. J. History 27 (2002)
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236 Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
how many annals were compiled. Scribes writing a primary entry sometimes left
room for information that they expected would be added later, and if they did not
do this, later scribes who desired to expand the notice would add information in the
margin or above the line. The expectation that information would be added later
was, of course, no guarantee that the information would be accurate or written
down in the right place.
The issue of the sequential authorship of the Logmann's Annals leads Haug to
È
conclude that, in its complete form, this yearbook was younger than the
Flateyjarbok Annals.10 The fact that the Logmann's Annals were continued does
 È
not affect the dating of its earlier parts, so it would be more accurate to say that the
portion of the Logmann's Annals (AM 420b 4to, with the continuations through
È
1388) that Magnus used is older than all of the Flateyjarbok Annals, the portion of
 Â
the Logmann's Annals that was written while Magnus was at work on his own
È Â
entries in the 1390s (preserved in AM 420c 4to, a direct copy of AM 420b 4to) is
contemporaneous with that part of the Flateyjarbok Annals, and the portion of the
Â
Logmann's Annals that was written after Magnus stopped writing is younger than
È Â
all of the Flateyjarbok Annals.
Â
One significant stumbling block for Haug was an assumption that is stated as
though it were the result of scholarly investigation, namely that the Icelandic annals
are ªconsidered to be written in an on-going processº.11 To the extent that many
annals are the product of a sequence of scribes Ä… as Haug later puts it, ªThe annals
are often written by several generations of different and mostly anonymous
authorsº Ä… it would indeed be accurate to describe them as having been written in
an ongoing process.12 However, the phrase turns out to have a different meaning:
ªAll the oldest Icelandic annals are based on older yearbooks, but it has been
assumed that the last notices in each of them were independent continuations and
contemporary information, written down consecutively year by yearº, for example,
every Easter.13 Haug deploys this assumption as something of a straw man, for her
subsequent analysis of the Logmann's Annals shows that Einar's part in it was not
È
written year by year:
I have demonstrated that one of the annals is not written consecutively. All the
Icelandic annals I have studied so far [i.e. the Skalholt Annals, the Skalholt
 Â
Annal Fragment, the Logmann's Annals, the Gottskalks Annals, and the
È
Flateyjarbok Annals], give the same conclusion.14
Â
We have seen that not every layer of every annal was written on a year-by-year
basis, but it would be misleading to suggest that no layer of any annal was so
written. Magnus's notices for 1390 through 1394 certainly appear to have been
Â
written year by year, because the introduction of blank spaces and empty lines
10
Haug, op. cit., p. 268.
11
Haug, op. cit., p. 264.
12
Haug, op. cit., p. 265.
13
Haug, op. cit., p. 264.
14
Haug, op. cit., p. 272. See E. Haug, Provincia Nidrosiensis i dronning Margretes unions- og maktpolitik
(Trondheim, 1996), pp. 37Ä…49, for the list of annals.
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The Flateyjarbok Annals as a Historical Source 237
Â
contrasts markedly with the previous solid columns of notices, and the size of the
writing is not always the same from one notice to the next. Another example is that
of the second continuator of the Logmann's Annals, who was writing around
È
1380.15 This annalist finished Einar's notice for 1361 and provided notices for 1362
through 1380. He, too, may have been writing year by year towards the end,
because he left blank lines between each year for the notices for the last five years.
Further examples of annalists leaving blank lines between notices are found in the
Annales Regii (GKS 2087 4to) and the fragment of the Skalholt Annals (AM 423a
Â
4to).16
A second stumbling block is Haug's application to the Icelandic annals of Sture
Bolin's conclusions regarding the Swedish yearbooks, which is that they were ªthe
result of learned compilations, copied into the annals not much later than their
earliest [recte youngest] notices, instead of being written into them consecutively,
event by eventº.17 Again we have a statement that is correct for some parts of some
annals and incorrect for others. It does not apply to the Flateyjarbok Annals, for
Â
example, as shown by the manuscript's internal information about the dating of its
various parts. Magnus is believed to have started the annals before he added new
Â
material to the beginning of the manuscript, including the following notice:18
Ari sidar enn fyrr segir huarf Olafr konungr Hakonar son. sogdu Danir hann
daudann enn Nordmenn villdu ecki trua ‡ui. ‡a var tekin til rikisstiornar yfir
Noreg ok Danmork drottning Margreta modir Olafs konungs enn dottir
Valldamars Danakonungs eptir er hon let fanga Albrict.19
[The year after what has been previously said [i.e. that Olaf Hakonarson was
Â
king in 1387, when Jo Ä…o wrote his part of the manuscript], King
Ân ÂrDarson
Olaf Hakonarson disappeared. The Danes said he was dead, but the
Â
Norwegians did not want to believe that. Then Queen Margareta, the mother
of King Olaf and the daughter of Valdimar, King of the Danes, was taken as
ruler over Norway and Denmark, after she had Albrecht captured.]
King Albrecht of Sweden was captured by Queen Margareta's men on February
24, 1389, and it is presumed that Magnus wrote these lines in the summer of 1389,
Â
when the news of Albrecht's capture came to Iceland.20 After this, Magnus finishes
Â
15
Storm, op. cit., p. xxi.
16
Storm, op. cit., pp. xiii and xviii. The manuscript of the Skalholt Annals (AM 420a 4to) provides a
Â
counterexample: it is a copy in which the copyist has added blank lines between the notices (Storm,
op. cit., p. xiv). It cannot be determined whether the exemplar contained blank lines between the
notices as well.
17
E. Haug, ªThe Icelandic Annals as Historical Sourcesº, Scandinavian Journal of History, vol. 22 (1997),
p. 266. Haug's previous citation of Bolin's view, on p. 264, gives this correctly: ª... all their notices as
they appear in the manuscripts are written at a fixed period, not much later than their youngest
noticesº.
18
See S. Nordal, Flateyjarbo vol. 1 (Akranes, 1944), p. xxiv, for the relative chronology of the annal
Âk,
and the prefatory material; he seems to be following F. Jonsson, ªFlateyjarbokº, in Aarboger for nordisk
 Â
Oldkyndighed og Historie, ser. 3, vol. 7 (1927), pp. 141Ä…142, 144Ä…145.
19
G. Vigfusson & C. R. Unger, Flateyjarbo vol. 1 (Christiania, 1860), pp. 28Ä…29.
 Âk,
20
Halldorsson, op. cit., p. 209.
Â
Scand. J. History 27 (2002)
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238 Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
his introductory supplements by writing a preface on the verso of the first leaf of the
quire he has prepended to the manuscript:
Ä…essa bok aa Jonn Hakonar sun. er her fyrst aa kuÅ„di. ‡a huersu Noreghr
bygdizst. ‡a fra Eireki vidforla. Ä…ar nÅ„st fra Olaafi konungi Tryggua syni
medr ollum sinum ‡aattum. ‡ui nÅ„st er sagha Olafs konungs hins helga
Haralldz sunar med ollum sinum ‡aattum ok Ä…ar medr sogur Orkneyia jarla.
Ã
Ä…a er Suerris sagha. ‡ar eftir Hakonar saga gamla med soghu Magnusar
konungs sunar hans. ‡a er ‡aattr Einars Sokkasunar af GrÅ„nlandi. Ä…ar nÅ„st
fra Helgha ok Vlfui hinum illa. ‡a hefr vpp annaal ‡egar heimrenn er skaptr.
tekr hann allt til ‡ess er nu er komit heimstodunni. hefir skrifat Jonn prestr
‡ordar son fra Eireki vijdforla ok Olaafs sogurnar baadar. enn Magnus prestr
Thorhallz sun hefir skrifat vpp ‡adan ok sua ‡at er fyrr er skrifat. ok lyst alla.
Gledi gud allzualldandi ‡aa er skrifadu ok ‡ann er fyrir sagdi ok iumfru sancta
Maria.21
[This book belongs to Jo Hakonarson. In it are poems first, then it tells how
Ân Â
Norway was settled, then about Eirekr Wide-Farer, then about King Olaf
Tryggvason with all its [i.e. the saga's] ‡Å„ttir. Next comes the saga of King
Olaf Haraldsson the Holy, with all its ‡Å„ttir and also the sagas of the Orkney
earls. Sverrir's saga comes next, followed by the saga of Hakon the Old, with
Â
the saga of King Magnus, his son. Then comes the ‡attr of Einar Sokkason of
 Â
Greenland, then next about Helgi and Ulfr the Evil. The annals then begin
from when the world was created. They include everything up to the present
age. The priest Jo Ä…o wrote about Eirekr Wide-Farer and both of the
Ân ÂrDarson
Olaf sagas, but the priest Magnu Ä…orhallsson wrote from that point on and
Âs Â
thus that which was previously written [i.e. described above], and illuminated
everything. May all-ruling God gladden the ones who wrote and the one who
dictated, and the Virgin, sancta Maria.]
All this evidence suggests that Magnus worked on the manuscript, including the
Â
compiled portion of the annals, from 1388 to some time during or after the summer
of 1389. The gap of three lines after the entry for 1390, the first such gap in the
annals, indicates the beginning of his contemporaneous reporting. There is no
evidence that he wrote the compiled portion of the annals shortly after 1394, the
year of the youngest entry, as Haug's assertion would have it.
Haug is thus led to a problematic surmise: ªAnnals should be unfolded from their
final entry. The notices should be regarded from the final year's point of view, as an
expression of how a compiler would formulate them from the perspective of
hindsight.º22 Certainly the notices should be regarded as having been written
retrospectively, because in most of the scenarios outlined here the annalist is dealing
with events that occurred in the past (whether recent or not so recent), but the final
entry is not necessarily the point from which the events were viewed. It may be for
21
Vigfusson & Unger, op. cit., p. iii.
Â
22
Haug, op. cit., p. 266.
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The Flateyjarbok Annals as a Historical Source 239
Â
some annals, but the writing of the Flateyjarbok Annals probably had several
Â
discrete phases during which Magnus was looking back at events: the first effort of
Â
compilation and then each year's entry after that. In addition, because many annals
were compiled by a series of scribes, any retrospective unfolding Ä… whether from the
final entry or from multiple points within the annal Ä… would have to be done for the
work of each person who contributed to the manuscript, not just for the last.
Like Magnus's notices for 46 BC through AD 1389, Einar HafliDason's part in
Â
his annals seems to be an example of retrospective, continuous compilation, rather
than of year-by-year entries. Haug suggests that the entry for 1359, which states
that the Swedish king Erik Magnusson died by poisoning, was based on the Libellus
de Magno Erici Regis (written between 1365 and 1371), which contains this
information.23 This, in turn, would mean that Einar was at work on his annals
sometime around 1365 or later, and as the last notice in his hand Ä… which breaks off
in the middle of a sentence Ä… is for 1361, it is likely that he was writing the entire
text around that time. Haug supposes that the terminus ante quem was September
1393, the date of Einar's death, but this should be moved up to at least 1388, when
Magnus made his copy of Einar's last notice. Indeed, the terminus ante quem was
Â
probably earlier still, perhaps 1380, since this is the date that Storm assigns to the
hand of the second continuator, who finished the interrupted entry for 1361 and
added notices for the years 1362 through 1380.24
Haug concludes from this and the mistakes of the later continuators that the
Icelandic annals ªwere secondary sources, not contemporary ones, and to a certain
extent based on rumours of doubtful originº.25 But Einar's use of the Libellus de
Magno Erici Regis (if this is his source) only means that parts of the annals were
secondary sources; some parts of some annals are very likely primary sources. The
contemporary entries of the Flateyjarbok Annals, for example, describe events in
Â
which Jo Hakonarson, the man who commissioned the manuscript, was involved.
Ân Â
There is also the example of Einar himself; although he may have composed his
notices years after the fact, he played an active role in the conflict between the
bishop of Holar and the clerics and laymen of Northern Iceland, which he describes
Â
in his entry for 1361.
The example of the Flateyjarbok Annals does support one of Haug's most
Â
important points, that annalists could add information about past events for
contemporary reasons. For instance, she discusses the negative evaluation of the
14th-century foreign bishop Nicholaus Rusare that was inserted into the Logmann's
È
Annals in the 15th century by its fifth continuator. This is not merely a reflection of
the 1430s Icelandic prejudice against foreigners, as Haug asserts; it is an active
revision of the past that supports the fifth continuator's contemporary agenda.26 If
he was indeed an associate of the men who drowned Bishop John Gereksson
Lodehat in 1433, his evaluation of Nicholaus Rusare helps to create the impression
that the killing of John Gereksson was justified because it stemmed from a long
23
Haug, op. cit., p. 268.
24
Storm, op. cit., p. xxi.
25
Haug, op. cit., pp. 270Ä…271.
26
Haug, op. cit., p. 270.
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240 Elizabeth Ashman Rowe
history of mistreatment at the hands of foreign bishops and their men.27 In the case
of the Flateyjarbok Annals, Magnus presumably included details about the family of
 Â
Jo Hakonarson in his entries for years far in the past because Jon wanted this
Ân  Â
information Ä… especially the doings of his paternal grandfather, Gizurr galli Ä… to be
part of the historical record. Gizurr had been a hirDmaDr of King Hakon
Â
Magnusson, and the tax exemptions and grants of land that he received from the
Â
king had laid the foundations for several generations' worth of wealth and power,
but as a farmer's son he would have been considered one of the ªnew menº whom
the Icelanders requested in 1302 should not be chosen as logmenn or syslumenn.28 Jo
È Â Ân
Hakonarson undoubtedly had Flateyjarbok written to enhance his status and
 Â
reputation, and this would have resulted as much from the manuscript's testimony
concerning his family's connection to the Norwegian monarchy as from its sheer
expense.29
Haug's review of the Logmann's Annals thus refutes the position of the
È
Norwegian historian Ottar Dahl: ªThe literary form of a narrative will influence it,
and further its prejudice ... Fragmented records of annals will, on the other hand,
leave the data without cosmetics.º30 Dahl is certainly correct as regards literary
form, but as Haug suggests, annalistic form cannot be said to ªleave the data
without cosmeticsº. For one thing, the annalists selected which data were to be
included, and for another, they often had noticeable biases. In addition to the
examples of the prejudices of the continuators that Haug discusses, Einar
HafliDason himself had opinions about the events on which he is reporting,
whether praising those he thinks good (e.g. Egill Eyjolfsson, Bishop of Holar, who
 Â
died in 1341) or reproaching those he finds unworthy. For example, his notice for
1343 has this to say about Bishop Ormr: ªspente hann fast Hola kirkiu godze ‡ui
sem ‡eir herra Egill byskop ok sira Einar Haflida son hofdu vndir komitº [he
quickly spent the goods of the church at Holar, those which Lord Bishop Egill and
Â
Father Einar HafliDason had accumulated].31 In the Flateyjarbok Annals, Magnus's
 Â
comments appear to present the opinion of others, but most likely these are
opinions that he shared. For example, his entry for 1387 includes this note:
ªVtkuoma Eireks Gudmundarsonar med hirdstiorn ok Narfua Sueinssonar med
logsogn yfir haalft land. Skipadir baadir af Ogmundi drozseta ok ‡otti ‡at nylundaº
Ã
[Arrival of Eirekr GuDmundarson as hirDstjo and Narfi Sveinsson as law-speaker
Âri
È
for half the country, both appointed by steward Ogmundr, and that was thought
uncommon].32 In some cases, the reported general opinion may have been shared
by very few. Magnus's notice about the death of King Hakon Magnusson (1380)
  Â
27
Haug, op. cit., p. 270.
28
H. Ä…orlaksson, ªKonungsvald og hefndº, in Sagas and the Norwegian Experience / Sagaene og Noreg.
Â
Preprints of the 10th International Saga Conference, Trondheim, 3Ä…9 August 1997 (Trondheim, 1997), p. 259.
29
For a detailed examination of the importance of Jo Hakonarson's relationship with his grandfather
Ân Â
to Flateyjarbok, see E. Rowe, The Development of Flateyjarbok: Iceland and the Norwegian Dynastic Crisis of
 Â
1387 (Odense, 2003).
30
Haug, op. cit, p. 264.
31
Storm, op. cit., p. 274.
32
Vigfusson and Unger, op. cit., p. 572.
Â
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The Flateyjarbok Annals as a Historical Source 241
Â
records that ªÅ„tla menn godann mannº [men think (him a) good man], a sentiment
found in no other contemporary source.33
Haug finishes with two results:
I have demonstrated that one of the annals is not written consecutively. All the
Icelandic annals I have studied so far, give the same conclusion. And I have
proved the annals to be an interesting source category, although more
interesting as remnants than as narratives.34
As I have demonstrated, not all of these annals do give this conclusion, including
one layer of the Logmann's Annals itself. The examples of year-by-year notices
È
described above are not extensive when compared to the millennium of history
being recorded, but they are enough to refute Haug's implication that these annals
are nothing but late compilations. These documents have complex textual histories,
and a single manuscript can preserve both contemporary notices and information
about events greatly predating the annalist. However, Haug is quite right to argue
for the necessity of studying the annals as subjective texts rather than as transparent
narratives of historical ªfactsº. Having opened the article with the ªgeneral
opinionº that ªthe annals are narratives of a more fragmented and incoherent
character than a chronicle or a saga. Being records, they are to a certain extent the
opposite of literary sourcesº, Haug goes on to show that as subjective texts, the
annals have a certain amount in common with literary sources.35 To this conclusion
can also be added the example of the Flateyjarbok Annals, for Magnus added them
 Â
to a manuscript in which he had already copied the poem Noregs konungatal, the
kings' sagas Sverris saga and Hakonar saga (and excerpts from Styrmir Karason's saga
 Â
about King Olaf Haraldsson), the short narratives GrÅ„nlendinga ‡attr and Helga ‡attr ok
 Â
Â
Ulfs, and the Icelandic version of the life of St. Edward (JatvarDar saga). The fact that
Â
Jo Hakonarson wanted (or did not mind having) annals as well as sagas in his fine
Ân Â
manuscript suggests that annals and sagas were for him complementary historical
genres rather than competing ones. Haug remarks, ªAs the annalist could not have
been present at all the occasions he wrote about, he must have based his
information on oral information and perhaps rumour. Carried out to their extreme,
the annals may be perceived as the newspapers of the Middle Ages.º36 This is
similar to what the eminent Norwegian historian Sverre Bagge says of Sverris saga:
ªThere is every reason to believe that any author who collected this material and
presented it, either in Norway or in Iceland, would find readers or listeners. To turn
to the analogy of the modern press, it contains `good news'.º37 Compared with the
kings' sagas, the annals are even more complex to analyse, given their multiple
layers of writing, but both are the products of individuals who are writing about the
past for reasons wholly of their present.
33
Vigfusson and Unger, op. cit., p. 570. Cf. Storm, op. cit., p. 281.
Â
34
Haug, op. cit., p. 272.
35
Haug, op. cit., p. 264.
36
Haug, op. cit., p. 265.
37
S. Bagge, ªIdeology and Propaganda in Sverris sagaº, in Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi, vol. 108 (1993), p. 12.
È
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