The dissertation deals with the institutional development of the church in Iceland from
the 11th century to the end of the 13th and the influence of the church on the
development of secular power structures in the same period. It is concerned mainly
with identifying and describing factors which explain how the Icelandic church was
originally fostered by the aristocracy; how the chieftains' involvement with the church
helped them consolidate their authority and accumulate more power; how the church
only very slowly began to create its own identity and how class-consciousness among
clerics developed.
The question of cult-continuity is considered and the sources for the history of the
church in the 11th century are subjected to scrutiny. The importance earlier scholarship
has attached to the early 12th century as a formative period of the Icelandic church is
reconsidered. The introduction of the tithe in 1097 is discussed in detail and its
significance subjected to revaluation. Evidence for early church building is assembled
and the development of ministerial organisation is described. Particular emphasis is
attached to the definition of church-ownership in the 12th century and a new
interpretation of the church's bid for increased control over ecclesiastical property in the
late 12th century is presented. The social origins of the bishops are considered and
their administration and political involvement is described. Emphasis is put on
studying the changing social status of priests, from being mainly chieftains or
influential farmers, to whom ordination was a means to augment their temporal
authority, to becoming younger and illegitimate sons who by the mid 13th century had
adopted an ecclesiastical identity and who differentiated between secular and
ecclesiastical interests