Gripla - 20.12.2010, Page 147

147
MICHAEL CHESNUTT
ON THE STRUCTURE,
FORMAT, AND PRESERVATION
OF MÖÐRUVALLABÓK
§ 1.
THE PURPOSE of this essay is to offer a new account of the genesis, his-
tory, and present physi cal state of the medieval Icelandic manuscript
Möðruvallabók, AM 132 fol. It supplements the informa tion given by
Bjarni Einarsson in his introduction to the new Arnamagnæan edition of
Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, which is the most recent publication in which a
text from this manu script has been critically studied.1
Möðruvallabók (hereafter abbreviated M) came into Árni Magnússon’s
possession after the death in 1690 of his young patron, the historian
Thomas Bartholin II. It had been transported to Denmark some years pre-
viously by Björn Magnússon sýslumaður from Munka þverá in the north of
Iceland.2 M is a large parchment book of which 188 original leaves now
remain. These leaves measure up to 34 x 24 cm, with the text written
throughout in double columns. Various considerations support a dating
around the middle of the four teenth centu ry.3 Long ago Jón Helgason pro-
posed that a terminus ante quem might be the death of Herra Grímr
Þorsteinsson lögmaður, whose obit is recorded in the Ice landic annals s.a.
1351/52, and to whom Jón Helgason thought there might be an allusion in
a note on the page immedi ately following the conclusion of Njáls saga in
M. In 1939 this note read: ‘lattu rita her vid Gauks sogu Trandils sonar.
1 Bjarni Einarsson (ed.), Egils saga Skallagrímssonar, vol. I: A-redaktionen (Copenhagen:
Reitzel, 2001), XXV–XXXI.
2 For the ownership of M in the seventeenth century and suggestions as to its medieval
provenance see Sigurjón Páll Ísaksson, “Magnús Björnsson og Möðruvallabók,” Saga 32
(1994): 103–51 (not utilised by Bjarni Einarsson).
3 See esp. Stefán Karlsson (ed.), Sagas of Icelandic Bishops: Fragments of Eight Manuscripts
(Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1967), introduction 26–29.
Gripla XXI (2010): 147–167.