Gripla - 20.12.2014, Síða 196

GRIPLA196
manuscripts containing Hljómi raustin barna best. furthermore, we discuss
in detail one of these manuscripts, which we nicknamed the ‘academic’
manuscript, namely Lbs 238 b 8vo. Finally, after the concluding remarks,
we present the editions of the various text under discussion here side by
side with their English translations, and an appendix with further informa-
tion about each manuscript.
2. the songbook Piae cantiones and its Icelandic parallels
the following section will examine the textual tradition of the Latin text
underlying the Icelandic song, the Christmas hymn Personent hodie. ÍB 525
8vo, the only Icelandic manuscript known to contain the Latin text of this
hymn, is of central importance in tracing the process by which the hymn
may have reached Iceland. Even so, the Latin hymn itself is best known
from the sixteenth-century printed collection of sacred songs known as
Piae cantiones. We will first introduce these two main sources before pre-
senting a comparison of their respective texts. We will then briefly discuss
the short Icelandic version translated by Bjarni Gissurarson (1621–1712)
and its relation to the Latin text.
the manuscript ÍB 525 8vo was probably copied in Skálholt in 1687. It
constitutes the first part of a collection of songs intended for the school
at skálholt, the so-called Hymni scholares ad auroram canendi.4 the hymn
Personent hodie appears in the main section of the manuscript, which
contains a collection of sacred songs, on fols. 74v–75v under the heading
sequuntur Hymni in Aduentu et natiuitate. jakob Benediktsson has charac-
terized it as a Catholic hymnal, which is remarkable, as no other hymnals
have survived in Iceland from before the Reformation.5 the Icelandic
translation of the hymn was very likely made by Bjarni gissurarson, who
stayed at skálholt around 1642, first as a student at the cathedral school
and later as a scribe.6
4 Jakob Benediktsson, “Hymni scholares. Latneskt sálmasafn frá Skálholti,” in Einarsbók:
afmæliskveðja til Einars Ól. Sveinssonar 12. desember 1969, ed. Bjarni Guðnason, Halldór
Halldórsson and Jónas Kristjánsson (reykjavík: nokkrir vinir, 1969), 121–137.
5 Jakob Benediktsson, “Hymni scholares,” 127.
6 for further discussion see Margrét Eggertsdóttir, “Hljómi raustin barna best,” 161. See also
Jakob Benediktsson, “Hymni scholares,” 127; and Bjarni gissurarson, Sólarsýn. Kvæði, ed.