Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 236

GRIPLA236
the present study will contribute towards a more complete and exhaustive
view of Icelandic post-Reformation manuscript dissemination and, more
generally, Iceland’s cultural history.
Gunnlaugur jónsson lived during the time that is for the most part
associated with the enlightenment. A brief outline of the most important
ideas of and research on this period will, therefore, be given first, followed
by some biographical notes on Gunnlaugur. His scribal network will then
be presented with examples of both offical and common people. the
analysis of this network is based on information found in the manuscripts
in Gunnlaugur’s hand and in the manuscripts otherwise connected with
him.
Previous studies about Common People
and Lay Historians
the important role of lay historians and peasant farmers, who copied
manuscripts and thereby contributed considerably to Iceland’s rich cult-
ural landscape, has been well documented over the last decades. Loftur
Guttormsson conducts extensive research on literacy and shows that by
the end of the eighteenth century, reading abilities were virtually universal
among the Icelandic population and that the clergy was integral to this
development.4 Writing abilities, on the other hand, he explains, were not
common among Icelanders until well into the nineteenth century, and
many boys taught themselves to write in secret. Around 1840, approx-
imately only one quarter to one third of all adults were able to write, and
the fraction was considerably lower among those who were over the age
of fifty.5 this implies that the scribal output of Gunnlaugur jónsson, who
was born in 1786 and thus 54 years old in 1840, is truly an outstanding
achievement. Ingi sigurðsson focuses on the history of Icelandic historical
research with an emphasis on lay historians and on the influence of
4 see, for example, Loftur Gottormsson, “Island: Læsefertighed og folkeuddannelse 1540–
1800,” in Ur nordisk kulturhistoria: Läskunnighet och folkbildning före folkskoleväsendet: XVIII.
nordiska historikermötet Jyväskylä 1981, ed. Marino jokipii and Ilkka nummela (jyväskylä:
jyväskylän yliopisto, 1981), 123–91; and “Læsi,” in Íslensk þjóðmenning, ed. frosti f.
jóhannsson, vol. 7, Munnmenntir og bókmenning (Reykjavík: Bókaútgáfan Þjóðsaga, 1989),
127–37.
5 see Loftur Guttormsson, “Læsi,” 137–40.