Gripla - 20.12.2013, Blaðsíða 240

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hold of saga- and rímur-manuscripts.22 Peter springborg, to name another
example, analysed the network of scribes, commissioners and manuscript
owners in snæfjallaströnd.23 even though springborg does not mention
a scribal network in his historical study, it forms an important part of
his seminal study. Ingi sigurðsson refers to the personal connections
between lay historians and the influence they excerted on each other.24
sigurður Gylfi Magnusson and davíð ólafsson emphasise the influence
of lay historians on the spread of writing abilities and ways of escaping
the daily hardship through literature. these ‘barefoot historians’, as the
two scholars call the laymen, “formed an informal association with the
function of exchanging material, organizing meetings and supporting each
other”.25 Although they sometimes use the term ‘network’ for these scribal
associations, their focus is more on the scribal activities and influences on
local communities, particularly of western Iceland,26 than on the networks
that scribes built.
the Icelandic enlightenment, commonly dated to c. 1770–1830, was
strongly influenced by the enlightenment in denmark and Germany,
which is charicterised by a stronger religious outlook than in france or
Great Britain.27 Its proponets formed a rather small group of the leaders
of society, which led to a movement ‘from above’, with the top of society
22 see Matthew james driscoll, The Unwashed Children of Eve: The Production, Dissemination
and Reception of Popular Literature in Post-Reformation Iceland (enfield Lock: Hisarlik,
1997), 58; and “‘um gildi gamalla bóka’: Magnús jónsson í tjaldanesi und das ende der is-
ländischen Handschriftenkultur,” in Text – Reihe – Transmission: Unfestigkeit als Phänomen
skandinavischer Erzählprosa 1500–1800, ed. Anna katharina Richter and jürg Glauser,
Beiträge zur nordischen Philologie, vol. 42 (tübingen: francke, 2012), 255–82.
23 see Peter springborg, “nyt og gammelt fra snæfjallaströnd: Bidrag til beskrivelse af den
litterære aktivitet på Vestfjordene i 1. halvdel af det 17. århundrede,” in Afmælisrit Jóns
Helgasonar, eds. jakob Benediktsson et al. (Reykjavík: Heimskringla, 1969), 288–327.
24 see Ingi sigurðsson, Íslenzk sagnfræði frá miðri 19. öld til miðrar 20. aldar, 48.
25 sigurður Gylfi Magnússon and davíð ólafsson, “‘Barefoot Historians’: education in Ice-
land in the Modern Period,” in Writing Peasants: Studies on Peasant Literacy in Early Modern
Northern Europe, ed. klaus-joachim Lorenzen-schmidt and Bjørn Poulsen (kerteminde:
Landbohistorisk selskab, 2002), 198.
26 see, for example, davíð’s Ph.d. dissertation on sighvatur Grímsson Borgfirðingur,
“Wordmongers,” esp. 124–80, or his article on a very similar topic, “scribal Communities
in Iceland: the Case of sighvatur Grímsson,” in White Field, Black Seeds: Nordic Practises
in the Long Nineteenth Century, ed. Anna kuismin and Matthew james driscoll, studia
fennica Litteraria, vol. 7 (Helsinki: finnish Literature society, 2012), 40–49.
27 see Ingi sigurðsson, “sagnfræði,” 244–45 and 250.