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of a homily on sts. Peter and Paul (item 2), the end of an All saints’ day
homily (item 6),19 and the end of a homily dealing with the importance of
weeping (item 10). It is possible that these leaves and the single leaf now
surviving as AM 655 XVIII 4to,20 which seems to have been written by the
same hand, were originally part of the same manuscript, but this cannot at
present be proved.21
After a detailed investigation of the manuscript’s language and ortho-
graphy, Hallgrímur concurs with kålund and others that AM 655 XXVII
4to was composed around 1300 or a little before. not surprisingly, the
different texts on the surviving leaves seem to vary somewhat in date of
composition. the manuscript’s provenance is a more complicated issue.
earlier scholars held competing opinions about whether the manuscript
was norwegian or Icelandic. Hallgrímur comes down firmly on the side
of the latter, deciding that the phonological evidence (especially the usual
preservation of initial h before l or r) indicates a provenance in Iceland.22
the possible audience of the manuscript and the institutional milieu in
which it may have been composed have not yet been examined. Any useful
study into such matters requires both a good edition of AM 655 XXVII
4to, which Hallgrímur has completed but not yet published, and detailed
studies of the texts themselves, which remain desiderata.
the Descensus Christi ad inferos, and its relationship to the better known norse version of
the Gospel of nicodemus, Niðrstigningarsaga, deserves further study.
19 this homily shows some influence from the popular pseudo-Bedan All saints’ day sermon
“Legimus in ecclesiasticis historiis.” Compare the conclusion of the norse homily with an
excerpt from the beginning of the Latin one: “einkum til þess at þat bœtisk í þessa dags
haldi ok af þváisk er mishaldit verðr á ǫðrum hátíðum fyrir órœkðar sakir eða óvizku eða
nauðsynja” (fol. 10r, ll. 12–15; Hallgrímur Ámundason, “AM 655 XXVII 4to,” “útgáfa,”
11–12 [normalized]); “[d]ecretum est … ut quicquid humana fragilitas per ignorantiam uel
neglegentiam seu per occupationem rei secularis in solemnitate sanctorum minus plene
peregisset in hac sancta obseruatione solueretur” (james e. Cross, “‘Legimus in ecclesiasti-
cis historiis’: A sermon for All saints, and Its use in old english Prose,” Traditio 33 [1977],
106, ll. 12, 14–16). see also stephen Pelle, “A Latin Model for an old english Homiletic
fragment,” Philological Quarterly 91 (2013): 496–97.
20 About which see Hall, “old norse-Icelandic sermons,” 699 (item 13). the fragment is
edited both in Hallgrímur Ámundason’s thesis and in konráð Gíslason, Um frum-parta
íslenzkrar túngu í fornöld (Copenhagen: s. trier, 1846), lxxviii–lxxxi.
21 this paragraph is a highly selective summary of Hallgrímur Ámundason, “AM 655 XXVII
4to,” “Inngangur,” 2–5.
22 Hallgrímur Ámundason, “AM 655 XXVII 4to,” “Inngangur,” 24–27.
tWeLftH-CentuRy souRCes foR oLd noRse HoMILIes