The Christianization of Iceland Priests, Power, and Social Change 1000-1300 [Hardcover]

This study investigates the role played by the Christian church in the development of power structures in Iceland, from the conversion in AD 1000 to the end of the thirteenth century. It demonstrates that by the time of the union with the Norwegian kingdom in 1262, fundamental constitutional changes had been brought about as a direct consequence of Christianization.

Introduction
I: Prehistory
1. The Conversion
2. The Early Bishops
3. Early Evidence of Priests
4. Early Church Building
II: The First Christian Institutions
5. The Idea of a Golden Age, 1080-1122
St Jon
6. The Tithe Law of 1097
III: Churches and Property
7. Churches in Narrative Sources
8. The Charter Evidence
9. The Evidence of Legal Sources
10. Private Churches
11. Origins of Religious Houses
IV: The Bishops
12. The Bishops and Family Politics
13. Bishops as Chieftains
14. Reform and Reaction
V: The Priests
15. Shortage of Priests in the Twelfth Century
16. Chieftain-Priests in the Twelfth Century
17. The Status of Priests according to the Old Christian Law Section
18. Priesthood and Social Mobility
19. The Shaping of Clerical Identity
VI: The Church and the Increase on Social Complexity
Bibliography
Index

V?steinsson's book skillfully draws on a wide range of historical and archaeological sources in order to challenge and revise traditional assumptions about the development of ecclesiastical institutions in medieval Iceland...a valuable resource for any historian interested both in the development of ecclesiastical institutions and in the relationships between ecclesiastical and socio-political institutions in medieval Europe. --Lutheran Quarterly

[T]his book is important for anyone who wishes to understand the development of Icelandic society after the Saga Age. --Europe: AncilÃ0