anrinal regifters, and in their Sagasjj
which particularly deierves attention,
lince the acTions o f many worthy men
are alfo found recorded therein^ I
lliall mention the deplorable end of
one of their biiliops, John Jerechini
by birth a Dane, who, from provoft
and eleclus o f Wefteras, was appointed
archbiftiop o f Upfal, by king
Erich Pommeroffii in 1409. In this
exalted lituation he behaved fo ill
that he was obliged to fly to Denmark
in 141 9 : from whence, according
to the account o f the Icelandic
regifters, he made the beft o f his way
to England, and from thence took his
paifage for Iceland, where he did not
arrive till the year 1430. He was
received by the inhabitants with open
arms, and appointed to the fee of
Skallholt, which had been ’ vacant
eleven years. But here alio he clifco-
vered fo much pride and ielfiflinefs,
that Tome o f the principal perfons in
the country entered into a confpiracy,
and when he was oelebrating mafs in
‘ * The Icelandic iinnals call him Jon GuirreckiTon.
5 the
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the cathedral church, on the thirteenth
o f Auguft 1433, in commemoration
o f St. Thorlak, they took him by
force from the altar, ft ripped him o f
all his epifcopal ornaments, and putting
him into a fack, with a large ftone
round his neck, threw him into the river
Bruar, which runs by Skallholt, from
whence his body was afterwards taken,
and buried in the cathedral church *.
King Chriftian i l l . began to intro*-
diice the Lutheran religion in the year
1540 ; but the zeal with which, the
biiliops (who were then very power**
ful) oppofed him, prevented him from
fucceeding in it till the year 1551 .
Since that period, the church of Iceland
has enjoyed a happy tranquillity,
every feed of difcord being fupprefted
in its rife, though fume attempts were
made to dliTeniinate evil.
Iceland is divided into 1S9 pariiiies,
of which 127 belong to the fee o f
Skallholt, and 6z to that of Hoolum.
* This account will ferve to correil what is erro*
neous in Rhyzelii Epifcopofcopia, where the typographical
faults in Perinfiioid’s Monumenta Uplandica,
vol. I. p. 155, have been copied. Vide Finn, liiil,
EccI, lilan, vol. II. p. 471.
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