See above, p. 48. Footnote 149: C. lxix. In 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation, the hierarchy was once more reconciled to the monarchy, and nothing more is heard of ecclesiastical pretensions during the remainder of the reign. It would seem that after this reconciliation, no churchman, at least not one of the younger generation, would care to send such a challenge as the _King’s Mirror_ out into the world. One of the older men, one who had suffered with Sverre and his impoverished Birchshanks, might have wished to write such a work even after 1247; but after that date the surviving followers of the eloquent king must have been very few indeed, seeing that Sverre had now lain forty-five years in the grave. It is therefore the writer’s opinion, though it cannot be regarded as a demonstrated fact, that the closing chapters of the _King’s Mirror_ were written after 1240, the year when Duke Skule was slain, perhaps after 1243, in which year Norwegian clericalism reasserted itself, but some time before 1247, the year of Hakon’s coronation and final reconciliation with the church. In the centuries following its composition the _King’s Mirror_ appears to have had wide currency in the North. When the editors of the Sorö edition began to search for manuscripts, they found a considerable number, though chiefly fragments, in Norway and Iceland; and traces of the work were also found in Sweden.[150] Thus far twenty-five manuscripts have come to light; “some of them are extensive, but many are fragments of only a few leaves.”[151] Copies of the work were made as late as the reformation period and even later. Footnote 150: See the Sorö edition, pp. xxix-xxxvii. Footnote 151: _Konungs Skuggsjá_ (ed. G. T. Flom), p. i. Among the fragments is a part of a Latin paraphrase made in Sweden in the first half of the fourteenth century. The translator was a cleric in the service of the Duchess Ingeborg, a daughter of the Norwegian King Hakon V. Ingeborg was married to the Swedish Duke Erik. _Arkiv for nordisk Filologi_, I, 110-112.