Singing the News in Seventeenth-century Iceland

Abstract

In 1631 the Protestant town of Magdeburg fell to the Catholic Imperial army and was burned to the ground with casualties of some 20.000 people. This event reverberated far and wide in broadsheets and pamphlets, songs and images, and not only in Germany. The destruction of Magdeburg echoed in faraway Iceland, where pastor Guðmundur Erlendsson wrote a poem about the event. In this article we argue that news of the event (perhaps in the form of broadsides) must have arrived quite early to Iceland and travelled through the learned community around the diocese of Hólar in the northern region of Iceland. Furthermore, we explore the intentions of the poet and his observations and perceptions of the events. The poem was most likely intended to be sung or recited and was disseminated in handwritten copies. We explore the questions: Why produce a poem about atrocities in foreign lands? What was the lesson of the events in Magdeburg for peaceful Iceland?