ICELAND: ITS HISTORY AND INHABITANTS. 293 



in that island being of great inii)ortance. The House of Commons, 

 in one of its petitions to the King, states that the reahii will be undone 

 unless the fish supply from Iceland is regular. Both Henry VIII 

 and Elizabeth had Iceland fish on their table at least twice a week, 

 and special commissioners selected the best fish out of everj^ ship on 

 its return from Iceland for the court. 



The Reformation came to Iceland about the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, and was resisted by the Bishop of Holar, Jon Arason, a 

 well-knowm poet and popular leader. At last he was taken prisoner 

 in a battle and publicly executed, with his two sons, in 1550. Thus 

 the Reformation Avas forced by the Crown on an unwilling jjeople. 

 The New Testament in Icelandic came out at Holar in 1584. The 

 woodcuts and some of the font of type of this fine work were made by 

 Bishop Gudbrand Thorlaksson with his own hands. The translation 

 of the Old Testament was also made by him. 



The printing press woke the national spirit. Arngrimur Jonsson 

 at the end of the sixteenth century rediscovered the treasures of the 

 past and brought them to the l^nowledge of Europe in his Latin 

 writings. His Brevis Commentarius in 1593 and his Crymogaea in 

 1609 Avere known and partly translated all over Europe. It was at 

 the beginning of the Renaissance of Old Icelandic literature. The 

 learned Thormod Torfaeus (I()3r)-I7l9), an Icelander who Avas 

 the historiographer of the King of Denmark, continued Arngrim's 

 Avork. The Icelandic antiquarian, Arni Magnusson (died 1730), 

 ililigently rescued cA^ery scraj) of old manuscript to be found in 

 Iceland, and founded the magnificent Arna-Magnaean collection in 

 Copenhagen, devoting all his life and money to it. It is due to him 

 more than to any one man that the old literature of Iceland has been 

 preserA-ed. 



The Hanseatic trade Avas succeeded by a Danish monopoly of trade, 

 Avhich completed the economic ruin of Iceland. Algerine pirates 

 appeared off the coast and carried off hundreds of people into slavery 

 in 1627. Smallpox caused the death of one-third of the population 

 in 1707, a famine raged in 1759, and the ATjlcanic eruptions of 1765 

 and 1783 laid Avaste large tracts of the island. Nature seemed in 

 league Avith man to render Iceland uninhabitable. 



During the Avar between England and Denmark, 1807-1814, Eng- 

 lish privateers prevented Danish ships from reaching Iceland, and a 

 famine Avould have resulted if Sir Joseph Banks, who had visited 

 Iceland in 1772, had not by an order in council got Iceland specially 

 exempted from the w^ar. 



The national movements in Europe in the first half of the nine- 

 teenth century reached the shores of Iceland, and a band of patriots 

 began a political struggle to Avin back the old freedom. On March 8, 



