INTRODUCTION. 
XIX 
brandt and Stefr Thorgilsen, who were sent 
from Germany in the year 997> were received 
with stones, and they and their religion abused 
with the keenest invectives by the poets of that 
day. Through the exertions of these, however, 
and other missionaries, the light of Christianity 
began more and more to shed its lustre upon 
the minds of the people, so that on the arrival 
of Gissur and Hjatle in the year 1000 , the 
whole island became converted, without blood¬ 
shed, though not without opposition, and it was 
agreed, at a general assembly of the inhabitants, 
that the worship of idols should be abandoned, 
and the religion of our blessed Saviour embraced 
in its stead. In 1050, it was farther decreed, in 
a solemn assembly, that the temporal or politic 
law, which was introduced from Norway by one 
Ulfliot, in the year 926 , should every where give 
place to the canon or divine law. 
After this period monks and convents # began 
to abound in the island, and the people paid a 
yearly tribute to the Roman see of ten ells of 
wadmal for each family. 
In the year 1056 the Icelanders received the 
first of their bishops ■'f-, Islief, who was conse- 
* Von Troil. f Ibid. 
