554 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



Matthew's fourth allusion to his trip occurs in an account of the 

 trouble between pope and emperor. The pope, through his legate, 

 offered Hakon the throne of Emperor Frederick, which Hakon re- 

 fused, "and this the said king declared to me, Matthew, who wrote 

 these pages, and attested it with a great oath." 169 



Matthew himself, 'then, accounts for only one visit to Norway, in 

 1248. The repeated hints of Matthew's friendship with Hakon, es- 

 pecially when the abbot of Holm, in 1247, told the pope " he is a most 

 particular friend to our king," point to previous visits of Matthew to 

 Norway. At least we can be certain that he helped the monks of Holm 

 with their finances before 1248 ; that he went to Norway at their 

 solicitation and the command of the pope, landing about June 10, 

 1248 ; that he bore letters from St. Louis to Hakon, who gave him rich 

 gifts and discussed state secrets with him, and that he stayed in Nor- 

 way long enough to reform the Benedictine order. 170 



Matthew's narrative gives color and detail to the stiff outlines which 

 I have wrested from the Rolls. No other record shows in clearer 

 light the relation of the Norwegian church to the English, — affection, 

 respect, intimate acquaintance, — than the account which the monks ot 

 Holm gave the pope of the Benedictines in England, of St. Albans, and 

 of Matthew Pans. 



The Norse Isles, Denmark, and Sweden. 



A whole history could be written about the interests of the Norse 

 clergy of Shetland, the Orkneys, Sodor and Man, in the church in 

 England, and especially in Scotland. 171 Orkney remained nominally 

 under the jurisdiction of Nidaros until c. 1475, and Sodor and Man un- 

 til, in 1458, a papal bull made it subject to York. 



What the church in Iceland owed to England was, in general, in- 

 direct and via Norway. We have seen how two or three of the Eng- 

 lish bishops whom Olaf " the saint " took to Norway, carried their work 

 later to Iceland. At least one of them, Rudolph, returned to England, 



169 CI, n>n. Maj., V. 201 (Giles, II, 415). 



170 The next step traceable in his itinerary is Winchester, July, 1251 (see 

 Preface, \\. of Rolls ed. of Hist. Min., vol. III). 



1 For example, St. Magnus, of Orkney, spent some time in England in the 

 reign of Henry I, and was well known there as a saint after his death (Magnus S.). 

 The Bishops of Man were sometimes consecrated at York to save the voyage 

 to Nidaros (see Keyser, I, 414 f.). With Furness the church of Man had 

 intimate relations (Keyser, I, 414 f.). R, L. C, II, 175, contains a letter from 

 Henry 111 to Olaf, King of Man, warning him not to interfere with the affairs 

 of Furness Abbey, "que libera elemosina nostra est." 



