Gripla - 01.01.1980, Qupperneq 327

322
GRIPLA
Iceland. The largest leaf measures 31.5 X 21.2 cm, although it has been
somewhat cut. Inquiry about these leaves at the Arnamagnæan Institute
revealed the fact that they had been on loan at the time of the earlier
search.
Certainly this was a very exciting discovery. All the leaves had been
used for bookbinding. What immediately catches the eye is that
among these 29 leaves there are some light in colour, unfaded and
almost uncut, but others dark and badly damaged, and some look as
if they had been soaked in water. On one of the light coloured leaves
there is an historiated initial burnt in gold at the beginning of Psalm
80, Exultate deo, which shows the Resurrection of Christ (Photo 2).
In style, colours, handwriting and linefillings, the resemblance to the
Nat.Libr. initial and fragments is so close that there can be no doubt
that they were all a part of the same manuscript.
These large, light coloured vellum leaves, most of them with multi-
coloured, gold initials, were reminiscent of a manuscript seen some-
where before. This latter manuscript turned out to be a calendarium,
AM 249a fol. (Photo 3), which had been photographed many years
earlier, both in colour and black/white. This time the 29 leaves and
the calendarium were all together in the Amamagnæan Institute so a
minute comparison could be made of the originals. This comparison
led to the conclusion that the illuminations, colour and handwriting
were so much alike that the calendarium and the 29 leaves had once
belonged to the same book. AM 249a fol. now measures 31.8X22.7
cm, but has obviously been cut considerably.
Arne Mann Nielsen, photographer at the Amamagnæan Institute,
took photos of several of the 29 leaves. Back home in Iceland Stefán
Karlsson, paleograph at the Ámi Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík,
kindly gave his opinion of the handwriting of the calendarium and the
leaves. His judgement was that in all probability the writing on the
leaves and in the calendarium was by the same hand.
On a slip at the beginning of the calendarium Árni Magnússon
(1663-1730) wrote a note with the following information: ‘Þetta Cal-
endarium er framan af einu Psalterio Davidis, sem hefr vered vid Skál-
holltz kirkiu, og synest þangad komed vera fra Einglande’ (This calend-
arium is from the beginning of a Psalterio Davidis, which has been in
the church at Skálholt, and seems to have been brought thither from
England).3 The fact that Ámi Magnússon was of the opinion that the