Håndskrift detailjer
AM 674 a 4to
Vis billederThe Icelandic Elucidarius; Island, 1150-1199
Indhold
Elucidarius
AM 676 b 4to from the seventeeth century is a copy of this manuscript. Even though there are, admittedly, a good many mistakes, it is characterized by an attempt to reproduce the original exactly, so that letter corresponds to letter, abbreviation to abbreviation; to some extent the old letter-shapes are also imitated. AM 676 b 4to was copied in turn in AM 676 a 4to by Einar Eyjólfsson (c. 1641-95).
Firchow, The Old Norse Elucidarius 1992 Ed. and transl.
Non
Ingen titel
Ingen titel
„Discipulus Vas christus veɴ at licam“
„eɴ leidde afstr ein faldan til“
Ingen titel
„ma oc Þvi trua at hann site adomstole“
„oc mego þeir iam sciot fara“
Ingen titel
„cleÞe oc goÞ hús oc at hevra fagran | song“
„am uir Þelegar oc oumbrøÞe“
Fysisk Beskrivelse / Kodikologi
Parchment.
Page and line numbers are added by a nineteenth-century hand. The manuscript shows no foliation.
There are three complete and two defective gatherings:
- I: fols 1-8.
- II: fols 9-16.
- III: fols 17-18; two conjugate leaves, which were the outermost of the gathering.
- IV: fols 19-26.
- V: fols 27-33; fols 17+32, 28+31, 29+30 are conjugate, fol. 33 is a single leaf, but was conjugate with a lost leaf at the beginning of the gathering; this leaf has been cut out and the inner margin of it is still preserved.
There are four major lacunae. The first occurs between fols 17 and 18, the second between fols 18 and 19, the third between fols 26 and 27, and the fourth comes after fol. 33. Several leaves are damaged at the top, with the result that some of the writing has been lost on fols 9, 13, 15, 16, 30 and 31. Most of fol. 32 has been cut out, and fol. 33 lacks its outer part. There are holes in fols 28 and 30; the first at least is older than the writing.
Written in long lines with 17 lines to the page. Initials, which are now entirely faded but were perhaps red originally, occur only on fol. 1r of the prologue and on fol. 1v where the dialogue begins.
The handwriting is rather large and very regular.
There are a few apparently old signs in the margins:
- On fol. 20r:10, left margin, and on fol. 22v:13, left margin there is an er-sign. In the first instance it may perhaps indicate that there is a mistake in the text.
- On fol. 24r:10, right margin, there is a triangular shape, possibly intended to make it easier to find the section which begins here on the joys of the blessed.
- On fol. 29v:10, left margin, there is a cross.
- On fol. 6r above l. 7 and on fol. 11r above l. 17 there is the word „frahuarf“ in a hand which can hardly be later than c. 1400; what it refers to is not clear.
Other marginal notes from later times are quite short and unimportant.
- At the bottom of fol. 18r there is „Bokin heiter lvcidarjus“; it seems to continue „Þviat Þ|etta er skr“.
- At the bottom of fol. 7r there is „Ora“.
- On fol. 17r there seems to be „Svo sertv Þa“.
- Part of the alphabet is written at the bottom of fol. 9r (from a to l) and at the top of fol. 18v (from a to i).
- Single letters on fol. 6v (h) and fol. 14v (apparently three or four d's under each other).
- There are some underlinings on fols 7v-8v.
- There are some references to other manuscripts (AM 675 4to and AM 238 XVII 4to) and on fols 17v bottom, 18r top, 18v bottom, 20v bottom and 25v:14, and line numbers in the margins of most pages. These are all from the nineteenth century. Jón Helgason (Manuscripta Islandica vol. IV p. viii) reckons that they were no doubt written by Konráð Gíslason.
The manuscript was apparently unbound until 1888, when it was given its present binding.
Historie og herkomst
Written in Iceland. Kålund (Katalog vol. II p. 92) agreed with Konráð Gíslason (Brudstykker af den islandske Elucidarius p. 51) that the manuscript was written c. 1200. However, A Dictionary of Old Norse Prose ( — Ordbog over det norrøne prosasprog) (after Hægstad, Latinsk skrift i gamalnorsk maal, 1906 p. 10, and Helle Jensen and Stefán Karlsson [1983, pers.]) date it to the second half of the twelfth century. AM 674 a 4to is considered to be one of the earliest extant Icelandic vernacular manuscripts.
Nothing certain is known about the history of the manuscript before it came into Árni Magnúson's possession. On the basis of some of Árni Magnússon's notes and a letter from Grímur Einarsson (1677-1707), now AM-slips a-d in AM 676 a 4to, it appears that Grímur remembered an old parchment manuscript which his father, Einar Eyjólfsson (c. 1641-95), had valued very highly and called Bókin dýra, but he could not say what this book contained. He thought that his father had owned the book and that it had come to Þórður Þorkelsson Vídalín, a brother of Bishop Jón Vídalín. It turned out, however, that the book Þórður Þorkelsson had was not a parchment manuscript, but the present AM 676 a 4to.
Árni Magnússon says in note c, with Þórður Þorkelsson as his source, that AM 676 a is a copy of Gísli Magnússon's codex. Jón Helgason (Manuscripta Islandica vol. IV p. xii), however, does not believe AM 676 b 4to to be Gísli Magnússon's codex, even though AM 676 a 4to certainly is a copy of AM 676 b 4to. He argues that it is very unlikely that Árni Magnúson would have described the 16 paper leaves, of which AM 676 b 4to originally consisted of, as a codex and concludes that it can only be AM 674 a which is meant by the term Gísli Magnússon's codex.
Gísli Magnússon (1621-96) moved to Skálholt in 1686 or 1687 and lived there with his daughter, Guðríður Gísladóttir, the bishop's wife, for the rest of his life. If the manuscript belonged to him, it is probable that Einar Eyjólfsson, who stayed at Skálholt at this time helping Bishop Þorður Þorláksson with the preparation of editions of sagas, used the manuscript there.
It is also possible that Gísli Magnússon gave the manuscript to Einar Eyjólfsson who may then have let Árni Magnússon have it. Bókin dýra may then be identical with AM 674 a 4to, and Grímur Einarsson may have remembered correctly that this book belonged to his father at one time.
[Additional]
Catalogued 23 August 2005 by EW-J.
Accessible for use.
The manuscript was restored by Birgitte Dall from 1958 to 15 August 1959.
plate neg 34 s.d. plate pos 34 20 November 2001 diapositive AM 674 a, 4to s.d. pp. 4, 7, and 8-9; pocket no. 49 digital AM 674 a, 4to 3 June 2004 p. 4, CD no. 3 b/w prints AM 674 a, 4to 1956
Bibliografi
| Forfatter | Titel | Redaktør | Omfang |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Old Norse Elucidarius | ed. Evelyn Scherabon Firchow | ||
| Konráð Gíslason | „Brudstykker af den islandske Elucidarius“, Annaler for nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie | 1858; p. 51-172 | |
| Elucidarius in Old Norse Translation, | ed. Evelyn Scherabon Firchow, ed. Kaaren Grimstad | 1989; XXXVI | |
| The Arna-Magnæan Manuscript 674 a, 4to. Elucidarius, | ed. Jón Helgason | 1957; IV | |
| Katalog over Den Arnamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling | ed. Kristian Kålund | II: p. 92 | |
| Marius Hægstad | Latinsk skrift i gamalnorsk maal - Vestnorske maalføre fyre 1350, Videnskabs-Selskabets Skrifter | 1906; Innleiding | |
| 2001 | |||
| 2004 | |||
| 1956 | |||
| Det Arnamagnæanske Haandskrift No. 674. A. 4to indeholdende det ældste Brudstykke af Elucidarius paa Islandsk / udgivet i fotolitografiske Aftryk af Kommissionen for det Arnamagnæanske Legat |