Gripla - 20.12.2010, Side 166

GRIPLA166
Stefán Karlsson, ed. Sagas of Icelandic Bishops: Fragments of Eight Manuscripts. Early
Icelandic Manuscripts in Facsimile VII. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger,
1967.
Stefán Karlsson. “Möðruvallabók.” Medieval Scandinavia: An Encyclopedia, ed.
by Phillip Pulsiano and Kirsten Wolf. New York and London: Garland, 1993,
426–27.
Stefán Karlsson. “Islandsk bogeksport til Norge i middelalderen.” Stafkrókar.
Reykjavík: Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi, 2000, 188–205.
van Weenen, Andrea van Arkel de Leeuw. Möðruvallabók: AM 132 fol. Leiden:
Brill, 1987.
van Weenen, Andrea de Leeuw. A Grammar of Möðruvallabók. Leiden: Research
School CNWS, 2000.
SUMMARY
‘On the Structure, Format, and Preservation of Möðruvallabók’
Keywords: Codicology, medieval Icelandic book market, post-medieval copyists,
Saga of Egill Skallagrímsson, Saga of the Sworn Brothers
The aim of this essay is to explain the physical make-up of the fourteenth-century
saga codex Möðruvallabók (AM 132 fol.). Njáls saga at the beginning of the extant
book was intended, as already argued by Jón Helgason, to have preceded a copy
of the lost *Gauks saga Trandilssonar in a separate codico logical entity. Egils saga,
now immediately following, was likewise designed to stand alone, and the first
item signal ling the com mence ment of an unbroken series of texts is Finnboga
saga, prior to which another saga may have been lost. The extant AM 132 fol.
represents a pile of loose, un bound groups of quires formerly kept in a book shop
with a view to being sold in combinations deter mined by potential buyers. The
large double-column format repre sents a mid-fourteenth-century innovation in the
produc tion of manuscripts of Íslendinga sögur, which previ ously had been copied
in smaller formats with a view to being read aloud; it is suggested that pretentious
and expensive copies of this literary genre reflect the ambition of the burgeoning
fourteenth-century Icelan dic aristocracy to appropriate traditional histo ry. The
cumulative physical de te rioration of Möðru valla bók over the centuries is discussed
with special reference to the text of Egils saga and Fóstbrœðra saga.
EFNISÁGRIP
Markmið þessar greinar er að skýra uppbyggingu fjórtándu aldar handritsins
Möðruvallabókar (AM 132 fol.). Jón Helgason færði rök fyrir því að upphafssaga
núverandi gerðar bókarinnar, Njála, hafi átt að koma á undan hinni glötuðu *Gauks