Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/37

Rh antiquity preserved to us by the Icelanders, and these treasures we are now prepared to examine.

What in other countries contributed most to repress the popular and national element in connection with the introduction of Christianity, was the circumstance that all work pertaining to the culture, education and spiritual welfare of the people was left largely, nay we might say exclusively, to the priest. In the eyes of the monks and the priests everything that suggested the heathen faith came as a rule from the devil's workshop, and even that which did not bear the stamp of heathenism was of but slight importance to them, as compared with that which monopolized their attention—the faith and the establishment of the church. In Iceland, where the priests also secured a considerable, though by no means a decisive, influence on the development of literature, many things contributed toward giving matters a different direction. Here there was no wall separating the priests from the people, or at least it was not so apparent. For a wide-awake people, occupying at the time of the introduction of Christianity a high place in culture, it was not necessary to look to foreigners for the nucleus of a national priesthood. The sons of the island were capable of filling the sacerdotal offices, though bishops of foreign birth were at first appointed to superintend the affairs of the church. In heathen times the position of chief and that of priest were intimately associated, and this system continued to prevail after the adoption of Christianity. Just as the chief had formerly been at the same time arbiter of all disputes and priest of Odin at the temple which he himself or his ancestors had built on his homestead, and around which his followers gathered, so he now erected a church and received ordination. And even after this relation ceased to exist, the bond between the ecclesiastical and civil government was not broken, for the chief retained the patronage of his own church. But not only the priests were chosen from among the people. Natives soon became bishops also, whose worldly