Ásgrímsson, Eysteinn

▪ Icelandic monk and author

born c. 1310

died March 14, 1361, Helgisetr Monastery, Norway

      Icelandic monk, author of Lilja (“The Lily”), the finest religious poem produced in Roman Catholic Iceland.

      Records of Ásgrímsson's life are scant. In 1343 he was imprisoned, probably for thrashing his abbot and perhaps for a breach of chastity as well. In 1349 he was made an official of the Skálholt bishopric, and he attended the bishop on a mission to Norway (1355–57). After that, he was inspector of the Skálholt bishopric until excommunicated in 1360, when he returned to Norway, dying shortly thereafter.

      There is some doubt that the high church official and the unruly monk are the same person, but such unruliness is not unlikely under church conditions of the time. Ásgrímsson's majestic Lilja is a survey of Christian history from the Creation to the Last Judgment, followed by 25 stanzas on contrition and a prayer to the Virgin Mary. By abandoning the circumlocutions of the skaldic poets (skaldic poetry), Ásgrímsson created a rapid, vivid narrative that remained the most ambitious and popular of the Icelandic religious poems until the appearance of the Lutheran Passion hymns of Hallgrímur Pétursson (Pétursson, Hallgrímur) in the 17th century.

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