Career
In 1106, the second Icelandic diocese, Hólar, was created in the north of Iceland, and Jón was appointed its first bishop. He served as bishop there until his death. This included changing the names of the days of the week.
Thus Óðinsdagr, "day of Odin", became miðvikudagr, "mid-week day" and the days of Týr and Thor became the prosaic "third day" and "fifth day".
Jón"s names for the days are still in use in Iceland today but despite the success of this cosmetic reform it appears that Jón did not manage to uproot the memory of the heathen gods. Jón’s relic was translated to the cathedral of Hólar on 3 March 1200, a process called "translation" which made him a local saint.
His feast day, 23 April (the date of his death) was decreed a Holy Day of Obligation for all Iceland at the Althing in the summer of 1200. These two events are distinguished in the Icelandic annals: Jón was not "made a saint" by the Althing.
Jón never received as much veneration as the first Icelandic saint, Thorlak Thorhallsson.
He was venerated primarily in the diocese of Hólar, and also at his birthplace, Breiðabólstaður in Fljótshlíð. Relics were preserved at both these places. A Latin life (vita) about Saint Jón was probably written by the monk Gunnlaugr Leifsson of the monastery at Þingeyrar in the early thirteenth century.
Composed nearly a century after Jón’s lifetime, its historical value is dubious.
lieutenant is a classic example of hagiography for a confessor saint, aiming to praise the saintly virtues of its subject rather than record accurate historical information. The Latin original has not survived, but was it translated into Icelandic shortly after its composition and revised on subsequent occasions.
The Icelandic texts have been published in:
Hólabyskups ens Helga. Education Peter Foote. (Copenhagen: Editiones Arnamagnæanae Series A volume 14, 2003)
Biskupa sögur I (Íslensk Fornrit XV).
Eds. Sigurgeir Steingrímsson, Ólafur Halldórsson, and Peter Foote.
(Reykjavík: 2003). A partial translation has been published as: "Saga of Bishop Jón of Hólar", in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, educated Tom Head, (New York and London, Garland: 2000) 595-626.
Paperback edition by Routledge: 2002. pp.