The Painful Reformation: Cultural Memory in Jón Egilsson’s Bishops’ Annals

The first steps in the shaping of the cultural memory of the Reformation are discussed here with an examination of cultural memory in the Bishops’ Annals of Jón Egilsson (1548–1636). The concept of cultural memory is used here to refer to the ideas of a particular group on history as opposed to the actual memories of individuals. The Bishops’ Annals is an important milestone in Icelandic literature as it marks a return to annal writing after an interval of 170 years. They are interesting as a subject for investigation of cultural memory as Jón Egilsson did not have many written sources at his disposal and did not base his account on such documents from the past. His work was based on his own memories and, in particular, the memories of others. The traumatic event in Jón’s account concerns the events of the Reformation, which concluded when he was child. Jón’s sources were people close to him, his elders and relatives. Many of his contemporaries shared his view of the history of Skálholt and the Reformation, but his writings also contributed to establishing that view. Jón Egilsson’s Bishops’ Annals are a historical work written for a power institution, i.e. the Lutheran Church, confirming the identity of the people of the bishopric as loyal royalists and supporters of the Reformation. Meanwhile, his work is also characterised by loyalty to the pre- Reformation Church and the Bishops of the time, who were closely linked to the writer’s family. This creates a certain tension within the work but also reflects attitudes in the community, as the general public in the Skálholt diocese was not critical of the previous church arrangement in Iceland or interested in making radical changes to it. Jón Egilsson had, like many of his contemporaries, an ambivalent view of the Reformation. His solution is in line with the individual-based historical writing that was prevalent at the time, and which he introduces himself at the beginning of the work, where conflict and reconstruction, heroism and weakness are linked to the qualities of individuals rather than the interests of power institutions. Jóns Egilsson’s Bishops’ Annals are a good source for the author’s own attitude to the traumatic event of Reformation being implemented by force in Iceland. Jón Egilsson supported the conclusion but not the execution in itself, and his annal writing shows this. According to him, the heroes of the Reformation were those who came along after the event and began to adapt the Icelandic Church to the changed circumstances, while he had little positive to say about the men who had worked with the Danes against the previous bishops. Jón’s view became influential, influencing Icelandic writers of church history into the 20th century.