Gripla - 20.12.2010, Page 162

GRIPLA162
whether the two men’s fuller texts were due to intensified scrutiny of the
exemplar, or whether their shorter texts were due to impatience, lack of
time, or (in Ásgeir’s case) the restraint imposed by a critical employer.40
As noted earlier, the middle bifolium of quire 25 in M (ff. *198–99 bis)
was extant in Árni Magnússon’s lifetime. It was still extant nearly 40 years
after his death, as appears from the fact that there is no sign in either Add.
5317 or NKS 1149 of a lacuna in Fóstbrœðra saga at this point. Jón
Sigurðsson, describing M in his incomplete catalogue of the Arnamagn æ an
Collec tion, testified that by the 1840s these two leaves had been mislaid
together with the quire fol lowing f. 201.41 Since readings from these por-
tions of M are quoted in the editio prin ceps of Fóstbrœðra saga published in
Copenhagen by Gunnlaugur Oddsson in 1822, Jón Sigurðs son concluded
that the losses in question had occurred after that date. The validity of this
inference is, however, compromised by Björn K. Þórólfsson’s identifica-
tion of NKS 1149 and AM 566 b as the immediate sources of Gunnlaugur
Oddsson’s variant apparatus.42 At all events, the dis appearance of leaves at
the end of Möðruvallabók as recently as the last quarter of the eight eenth
or the first half of the nineteenth century supports the view that this
manu script did not assume the character of a single bound volume until
bookbinder Anker Kyster imposed that character on it after World War I.
40 In the above exposition I follow Jónas Kristjánsson (as n. 37) in assuming that both of
Ásgeir Jónsson’s and the first two of Oddur Jónsson’s M-texts of Fóstbrœðra saga were
first-hand transcripts of AM 132 fol. Björn K. Þórólfsson, Fóstbrœðra saga, XVI, did not
believe that this applied to Thott 1768. Jónas Kristjánsson’s counter-argument concerning
Ásgeir’s use of a peculiar script (‘membranagtig frakturskrift’) when copying parchment
codices carries a good deal of weight, but is not decisive; cf. Agnete Loth, “Om nogle af
Ásgeir Jónssons håndskrifter,” Opuscula I (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1960), 207–12,
and Hubert Seelow, “Ásgeir Jónsson und seine ‘membranartige’ Frakturschrift,” Sjötíu
ritgerðir helgaðar Jakobi Benediktssyni 20. júlí 1977, síðari hluti (Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna
Magnússonar, 1977), 658–64.
41 Fair copy of catalogue in AM 394 fol., ff. 133v-134r; cf. Jón Sigurðsson, “Den arnamag-
næanske Commission,” Antiqvarisk Tidsskrift 1846–1848 (1849): 104–06.
42 Björn K. Þórólfsson, Fóstbrœðra saga, XL. Gunnlaugur Oddsson was an Arnamagnæan
stipendiary in Copenhagen from 1816 to 1827.