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the selection of sagas bears witness to the specific mentality and literary
interests of its commissioner and redactor(s).
the manuscript’s provenance after Björn’s day further points to its high
status: the codex had been acquired no later than 1550 (a few decades after
it was copied) by Ari Jónsson, lögmaðr and son of bishop jón Arason, or
someone closely connected to him.26 AM 152 fol. stayed in this influential
dynasty for 200 years; among its owners were Magnús Björnsson, also
the owner of Möðruvallabók, and his daughter Helga.27 Ultimately the
manuscript passed to Helga’s grandson, Vigfús guðbrandsson, who gave
it to Árni Magnússon.28
the sagas: ideology and literary themes
The sagas and their literary context
AM 152 fol. contains eleven sagas: the Íslendingasögur Þórðar saga hreðu and
Grettis saga; five fornaldarsögur: Hálfdanar saga Brönufóstra, Hrólfs saga
Gautrekssonar (longer redaction), Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, Göngu-Hrólfs
saga and Gautreks saga (longer redaction); and four riddarasögur: Flóvents
saga (redaction I), Mágus saga (longer redaction), Sigurðar saga þǫgla (longer
redaction) and Ectors saga.29 the sagas were probably composed over a long
26 As Jón Helgason pointed out, a list of sheep thieves jotted down also appears in a docu-
ment from May 6, 1545, containing a judgment of Ari’s concerning these same thieves,
see Handritaspjall (reykjavík: Mál og menning, 1958), 74–75; DI, 11:403–405. Jón
misidentifies the Björn Þorleifsson mentioned in the manuscript’s margin as Björn ‘ríki’
(i.e. the older Björn), but his observations are otherwise reliable.
27 jón Helgason, Handritaspjall, 74–75. on women’s role in the distribution of AM 152
fol., see Susanne Miriam Arthur, ‘the Importance of Marital and Maternal ties in the
Distribution of Icelandic Manuscripts from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century,’
Gripla 23 (2012): 216–219.
28 Margrét Eggertsdóttir, ‘Handritamiðstöðin í Skálholti,’ Menntun og menning í Skálholtsstifti
1620–1730, glíman, sérrit, vol. 1, ed. Kristinn Ólason (Skálholt: grettisakademían, 2010),
86–87.
29 the fornaldarsögur discussed in this article are all published in C. C. rafn’s Fornaldarsögur
Nordrlanda (1829–30) and reprinted in Guðni jónsson and Bjarni vilhjálmsson’s edition
(1943–44). some of these sagas had been previously published, and others have been
edit ed separately. Gautreks saga was edited in two versions by Wilhelm ranisch (1900),
and the shorter version of Hrólfs saga was published by ferdinand Detter in 1891. Grettis
saga (1936) and Þórðar saga hreðu (1959) are published in the Íslenzk fornrit series by
Guðni jónsson and jóhannes Halldórsson respectively. Ectors saga and Sigurðar saga þǫgla
IDEoLogY AnD IDEntItY In LAtE MEDIEVAL WESt ICELAnD