Gripla - 20.12.2014, Qupperneq 194

GRIPLA194
teresting enough to warrant further investigation.2 Although never printed
in the Church’s official hymnbooks, Hallgrímur’s hymn is found in nearly
30 manuscripts from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.
for the 2010 Summer School in Manuscript Studies, held in Copen-
hagen under the auspices of the Árni Magnússon Institute in Icelandic
Studies, reykjavík, and Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, university of
Copenhagen, it was decided that the hymn would make a suitable edito-
rial project for the school’s Master Class, i.e. the group of advanced-level
students participating in the summer school for the third time. Although
it was not possible to finish this project in the short time available during
the summer school, some of the original summer school participants have
continued working on the text, both individually and at meetings and
workshops held on three occasions over the last three years in freiburg and
Göttingen.3 these are ulrike Michalczik (göttingen), Sofie Vanherpen
(Ghent), eevastiina korri (Helsinki), Friederike Richter (Berlin), Werner
Schäfke (Copenhagen) and Katharina Baier (Braunschweig). for the two
meetings in göttingen, Margrét Eggertsdóttir and Matthew Driscoll were
invited to assist and advise.
the results of this project, now referred to as the Personent Hodie Text
Edition Project, are presented here. the history of the text’s transmission
is investigated in depth, the origin of the manuscripts and their interre-
lationship as well as their material aspects are described, and the content
of the hymn is discussed, as well as the relationship between the original
Latin text and the Icelandic translation. Finally, the text of the Latin text as
preserved in ÍB 525 8vo is printed, along with that of the shorter Icelandic
version as it is preserved in JS 386 8vo, the oldest extant manuscript, writ-
ten at Hólar in Hjaltadalur in 1684. the longer version in Lbs 238 b 8vo, a
manuscript written around 1860 by Páll Pálsson “stúdent,” is also present-
ed. this manuscript includes variants taken from other manuscripts the
scribe made use of. finally, the edition is supplemented with an English
2 A preliminary survey of the Icelandic manuscripts preserving the hymn and a short
introduction to the origin, development and distribution of the text was presented in
Margrét Eggertsdóttir ‘“Hljómi raustin barna best”: upppruni, um sköpun og útbreiðsla
gamals jólasálms í handritum fyrr á öldum,” in Pulvis Olympicus: Afmælisrit tileinkað Sigurði
Péturssyni, eds. Jón Ma. Ásgeirsson et al. (reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 2009), 155–178.
3 We are grateful to the zentrum für Mittelalter- und frühneuzeitforschung göttingen for
generously funding the meetings in Göttingen.