Manuscript Culture between Iceland and Lincoln

White field, black seeds: Nordic literacy practices in the long nineteenth century, ed. Anna Kuismin & M. J. Driscoll, 2013

The extent and quality of manuscript production in Iceland during the middle ages -remarkable in view both of the small size and relative isolation of the country -is well known. 1 Less well known is the fact that manuscript culture continued to thrive in Iceland, long after the coming of print in the 16th century. 2 With paper quickly replacing the more expensive vellum and a steady increase in literacy among ordinary people throughout the period, manuscript transmission remained the norm, for many types of literature at least, throughout the pre-modern era. 3 The present article examines this phenomenon, with particular focus on Magnús Jónsson í Tjaldanesi, 4 an ordinary farmer with no formal education who was still copying manuscripts in the first decades of the 20th century, as James Joyce sat in Trieste and Zürich writing Ulysses.

Boreas rising: Antiquarianism and national narratives in 17th- and 18th-century Scandinavia, 2019

Saga-Book, 2019

The vigorous pursuit of writing and copying manuscripts in 17th-century Iceland involved all the most important genres of Icelandic literature and extended over the whole country. Humanism brought with it a new interest in Icelandic saga literature, as confirmed by the increasing number of manuscript copies that contained saga texts. It was at the instigation of the two bishops, Brynjólfur Sveinsson at Skálholt and Þorlákur Skúlason at Hólar, that many priests and literate members of the laity copied and sometimes also provided explanatory commentaries for medieval works. In my paper I will mainly focus on two prolific scribes, Ketill Jörundsson (1603–1670) and Jón Erlendsson (d. 1672), who were both in the service of the church and copied a large number of/many vellum manuscripts, in some cases thereby saving important medieval works from oblivion. Contemporary poetry, both secular and religious, was also transmitted in manuscripts – ‪a fact often overlooked by modern ‬literary critics and historians. In my paper I will mention a few examples of poetry that can shed interesting light on Icelandic culture and society in the so-called Age of Learning.‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

The Making of the Humanities, 2010

On the scholarship of Árni Magnússon (1663-1730), collector of Icelandic medieval manuscripts.

2012

The purpose of my paper is to analyse the influence of medieval European literature on the composition of the Icelandic Sagas. The literary production in medieval Iceland becomes especially important when an antimonarchical, anti-courtly faction of intellectuals appears on the mostly monarchical European stage. The search for a cultural identity has a fundamental effect on the world of literary creation. The fundamental question of the invention of tradition in Iceland in the Middle Ages works as a trigger for the observation of the problematic involved in its literary production. Pre-Christian myths, Latin literature, old poetry and beliefs crystallized in the so called by Meulengracht Sørensen “paradox, of a copious and highly developed literature in a remote country” . The explanation given by now to this paradox from a literary and sociological approach is to consider that an exceptional society, formed in exceptional circumstances, as is the case in medieval Iceland, produced an exceptional literature. Beyond the isolating terms implied in this conception, this “exceptional” character will be our actual matter of work. Considering it not as a solitary development rooted in ancient times, but as a “response” to its contemporary European scenery. A courtly literature would have had no reception in a small farming population, organized far from a kingly structure. It is this exceptional sociological and political situation, in contrast to the birth of European kingdoms, a great companion for the creation of a literature in terms of invention of tradition. Challenging the theory of a self-constructed isolated literature, we will reveal within the texts of the sagas how the different voices from the Viking Age are set to dialogue with its contemporary European text-context referent. Bibliography: Meulengrachr Sørensen, Preben, “Social institutions and belief systems of medieval Iceland (c. (70-1400) and their relations to the literary production”, p. 10, in Clunies Ross, M. Old Icelandic Literature and Society, Cambridge University Press, 2000.

2020

This is a handout I wrote for my students in the graduate course "Medieval Icelandic Manuscripts" at the University of Iceland. It is intended as an aiding tool for individual study and , as such, it will hopefully be also useful for scholars who need to work with original texts, but are not experts in linguistics or paleography. Feedback is most welcome! Please let me know if you have any suggestions for improvement, corrections, additions etc.

2011

Material Philology and the Case of Icelandic Manuscripts………………5 Material Philology and the Study of Marginalia………………………………..5 History of Icelandic Manuscripts……………………………………………….7 Chapter Two: Rask 72a (Jónsbók)………………………………………………..……17 Rask 72a Paleographic Description………………………………………..…..24 Chapter Three: AM 604 4to (Rímur) and AM 433a 12mo (Margrétar saga)…………29

Symbolae Osloenses, 2004

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